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International
Business
Competing in the Global Marketplace
13e
Charles W.L. Hill
UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON
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INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
Published by McGraw-Hill Education, 2 Penn Plaza, New York, NY 10121. Copyright © 2021 by McGraw-Hill
Education. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this publication may be reproduced or
distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written consent of
McGraw-Hill Education, including, but not limited to, in any network or other electronic storage or transmission, or
broadcast for distance learning.
Some ancillaries, including electronic and print components, may not be available to customers outside the
United States.
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 LWI 21 20
ISBN 978-1-260-57586-6
MHID 1-260-57586-1
Cover Image: Buslik/Shutterstock
All credits appearing on page or at the end of the book are considered to be an extension of the copyright page.
The Internet addresses listed in the text were accurate at the time of publication. The inclusion of a website does not
indicate an endorsement by the authors or McGraw-Hill Education, and McGraw-Hill Education does not guarantee the
accuracy of the information presented at these sites.
mheducation.com/highered
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For my children, Elizabeth,
Charlotte, and Michelle
—Charles W. L. Hill
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about the AUTHOR
Charles W. L. Hill
University of Washington
Charles W. L. Hill is the Hughes M. and Katherine Blake Professor of Strategy and International Business in the Foster
School of Business at the University of Washington. Professor Hill has taught in the Management, MBA, Executive
MBA, Technology Management MBA, and PhD programs at the University of Washington. During his time at the
University of Washington, he has received over 25 awards for teaching excellence, including the Charles E. Summer
Outstanding Teaching Award.
A native of the United Kingdom, Professor Hill received his PhD from the University of Manchester, UK. In
addition to the University of Washington, he has served on the faculties of the University of Manchester, Texas A&M
University, and Michigan State University.
Professor Hill has published over 50 articles in top academic journals, including the Academy of Management
Journal, Academy of Management Review, Strategic Management Journal, and Organization Science. Professor Hill has
also published several textbooks, including International Business (McGraw-Hill) and Global Business Today (McGrawHill). His work is among the most widely cited in international business and strategic management.
Professor Hill works on a private basis with a number of organizations. His clients have included Microsoft, where
he taught in-house executive education courses for two decades. He has also consulted for a variety of other large
companies (e.g., AT&T Wireless, Boeing, BF Goodrich, Group Health, Hexcel, Philips Healthcare, Philips Medical
Systems, Seattle City Light, Swedish Health Services, Tacoma City Light, Thompson Financial Services, WRQ, and
Wizards of the Coast). Additionally, Dr. Hill has served on the advisory board of several start-up companies.
For recreation, Professor Hill enjoys skiing and competitive sailing!
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brief CONTENTS
part one
Introduction and Overview
Chapter 1
Globalization 2
part two
National Differences
Chapter 2
National Differences in Political, Economic, and Legal Systems 38
Chapter 3
National Differences in Economic Development 62
Chapter 4
Differences in Culture 92
Chapter 5
Ethics, Corporate Social Responsibility, and Sustainability 132
part three
The Global Trade and Investment Environment
Chapter 6
International Trade Theory 164
Chapter 7
Government Policy and International Trade 200
Chapter 8
Foreign Direct Investment 230
Chapter 9
Regional Economic Integration 260
part four
The Global Monetary System
Chapter 10
The Foreign Exchange Market 294
Chapter 11
The International Monetary System 320
Chapter 12
The Global Capital Market 348
part five
The Strategy and Structure of International Business
Chapter 13
The Strategy of International Business 370
Chapter 14
The Organization of International Business 402
Chapter 15
Entering Developed and Emerging Markets 440
part six
International Business Functions
Chapter 16
Exporting, Importing, and Countertrade 470
Chapter 17
Global Production and Supply Chain Management 498
Chapter 18
Global Marketing and Business Analytics 528
Chapter 19
Global Human Resource Management 566
Chapter 20
Accounting and Finance in International Business 596
part seven
Integrative Cases
Globalization of BMW, Rolls-Royce, and the MINI 625
The Decline of Zimbabwe 627
Economic Development in Bangladesh 629
The Swatch Group and Cultural Uniqueness 630
Woolworths’ Corporate Responsibility Strategy 632
The Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) Is Dead: Long Live the CPTPP! 634
Boeing and Airbus Are in a Dogfight over Illegal Subsidies 636
FDI in the Indian Retail Sector 637
Free Trade in Africa 639
The Mexican Peso, the Japanese Yen, and Pokémon Go 641
Egypt and the IMF 642
Alibaba’s Record-Setting IPO 643
Sony Corporation: Still a Leader Globally? 644
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Organizational Architecture at P&G 646
Cutco Corporation—Sharpening Your Market Entry 647
Tata Motors and Exporting 649
Alibaba and Global Supply Chains 650
Best Buy Doing a Turnaround Again 651
Sodexo: Building a Diverse Global Workforce 653
Tesla, Inc.—Subsidizing Tesla Automobiles Globally 654
Glossary 656
Indexes 666
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THE PROVEN CHOICE FOR INTERNATIONAL
BUSINESS
RELEVANT. PRACTICAL. INTEGRATED.
It is now more than a quarter of a century since work began on the first edition of International Business: Competing in
the Global Marketplace. By the third edition the book was the most widely used international business text in the world.
Since then its market share has only increased. The success of the book can be attributed to a number of unique features.
Specifically, for the thirteenth edition we have developed a learning program that
• Is comprehensive, state of the art, and timely.
• Is theoretically sound and practically relevant.
• Focuses on applications of international business concepts.
• Tightly integrates the chapter topics throughout.
• Is fully integrated with results-driven technology.
• Takes full and integrative advantage of globalEDGE.
msu.edu—the Google-ranked #1 web resource for “international business resources.”
International Business, now in its thirteenth edition, authored by Charles W. L. Hill, is a comprehensive
and case-oriented version of our text that lends itself to the core course in international business for those courses that
want a deeper focus on the global monetary system, structure of international business, international accounting, and
international finance. We cover more and integrated cases in International Business 13e and we provide a deeper
treatment of the global capital market, the organization of an international business, international accounting, and
international finance–topics that are allocated chapters in International Business 13e but are not attended to in the shorter
treatment of IB in Global Business Today 11e.
Like our shorter text, Global Business Today 11e (2019), International Business 13e focuses on being current,
relevant, application rich, accessible, and student focused. Our goal has always been to cover macro and micro issues
equally and in a relevant, practical, accessible, and student focused approach. We believe that anything short of such a
breadth and depth of coverage is a serious deficiency. Many of the students in these international business courses will
soon be working in global businesses, and they will be expected to understand the implications of international business
for their organization’s strategy, structure, and functions in the context of the global marketplace. We are proud and
delighted to have put together this international business learning experience for the leaders of tomorrow.
Over the years, and through now 13 editions,
Dr. Charles Hill has worked hard to adhere to these goals. Since Global Business Today 9e (2015), and International
Business 11e (2017), Charles has been guided not only by his own reading, teaching, and research but also by the
invaluable feedback he receives from professors and students around the world, from reviewers, and from the editorial
staff at McGraw-Hill Education. His thanks goes out to all of them.
COMPREHENSIVE AND UP-TO-DATE
To be relevant and comprehensive, an international business package must
• Explain how and why the world’s cultures, countries, and regions differ.
• Cover economics and politics of international trade and investment.
• Tackle international issues related to ethics, corporate social responsibility, and sustainability.
• Explain the functions and form of the global monetary system.
• Examine the strategies and structures of international businesses.
• Assess the special roles of the various functions of an international business.
Relevance and comprehensiveness also require coverage of the major theories. It has always been a goal to incorporate
the insights gleaned from recent academic scholarship into the book. Consistent with this goal, insights from the
following research, as a sample of theoretical streams used in the book, have been incorporated:
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• New trade theory and strategic trade policy.
• The work of Nobel Prize–winning economist Amartya Sen on economic development.
• Samuel Huntington’s influential thesis on the “clash of civilizations.”
• Growth theory of economic development championed by Paul Romer and Gene Grossman.
•
Empirical work by Jeffrey Sachs and others on the relationship between international trade and economic
growth.
• Michael Porter’s theory of the competitive advantage of nations.
• Robert Reich’s work on national competitive advantage.
• The work of Nobel Prize–winner Douglass North and others on national institutional structures and the
protection of property rights.
• The market imperfections approach to foreign direct investment that has grown out of Ronald Coase and Oliver
Williamson’s work on transaction cost economics.
• Bartlett and Ghoshal’s research on the transnational corporation.
• The writings of C. K. Prahalad and Gary Hamel on core competencies, global competition, and global strategic
alliances.
• Insights for international business strategy that can be derived from the resource-based view of the firm and
complementary theories.
• Paul Samuelson’s critique of free trade theory.
• Conceptual and empirical work on global supply chain management—logistics, purchasing (sourcing),
operations, and marketing channels.
In addition to including leading-edge theory, in light of the fast-changing nature of the international business
environment, we have made every effort to ensure that this product is as up-to-date as possible. A significant amount has
happened in the world since we began revisions of this book. By 2019, almost $4 trillion per day were flowing across
national borders. The size of such flows fueled concern about the ability of short-term speculative shifts in global capital
markets to destabilize the world economy.
The world continued to become more global. As you can see in Chapter 1 on Globalization, trade across country
borders has almost exponentially escalated in the last few years. Several Asian economies, most notably China and India,
continued to grow their economies at a rapid rate. New multinationals continued to emerge from developing nations in
addition to the world’s established industrial powers.
Increasingly, the globalization of the world economy affected a wide range of firms of all sizes, from the very large
to the very small. We take great pride in covering international business for small- and medium-sized enterprises
(SMEs), as well as larger multinational corporations. We also take great pride in covering firms from all around the
world. Some sixty SMEs and multinational corporations from all six core continents are covered in the chapters’ opening
cases, closing cases, and/or Management Focus boxes.
And unfortunately, global terrorism and the attendant geopolitical risks keep emerging in various places globally,
many new and inconceivable just a decade ago. These represent a threat to global economic integration and activity.
Plus, with the United Kingdom opting to leave the European Union (Brexit), which has implications past 2019, the
election of President Donald Trump in the United States (who espouses views on international trade that break with the
long established consensus), and several elections around the world, the globe—in many ways—has paid more attention
to nationalistic issues over trade. These topics and many more are integrated into this text for maximum learning
opportunities.
What’s New in the 13th Edition
The success of the first twelve editions of International Business was based in part on the incorporation of leading-edge
research into the text, the use of the up-to-date examples and statistics to illustrate global trends and enterprise strategy,
and the discussion of current events within the context of the appropriate theory. Building on these strengths, our goals
for the twelfth edition have focused on the following:
1. Incorporate new insights from scholarly research.
2. Make sure the content covers all appropriate issues.
3. Make sure the text is up-to-date with current events, statistics, and examples.
4. Add new and insightful opening and closing cases in most chapters.
5. Incorporate value-added globalEDGETM features in every chapter.
6. Connect every chapter to a focus on managerial implications.
7. Provide 20 new integrated cases that can be used as additional cases for specific chapters but, more importantly,
as learning vehicles across multiple chapters.
As part of the overall revision process, changes have been made to every chapter in the book. All statistics have Page ix
been updated to incorporate the most recently available data. As before, we are the only text in International
Business that ensures that all material is up-to-date on virtually a daily basis. The copyright for the book is 2021 but you
are likely using the text in 2020, 2021, or 2022–we keep it updated to each semester you use the text in your course! We
are able to do this by integrating globalEDGE features in every chapter. Specifically, the Google number-one-ranked
globaledge.msu.edu site (for “international business resources”) is used in each chapter to add value to the chapter
material and provide up-to-date data and information. This keeps chapter material constantly and dynamically updated
for teachers who want to infuse globalEDGE material into the chapter topics, and it keeps students abreast of current
developments in international business.
In addition to updating all statistics, figures, and maps to incorporate most recently published data, a chapter-bychapter selection of changes for the 13th edition include the following:
Chapter 1: Globalization
•
•
•
•
New opening case: How the iPhone is made: Apple’s Global Production System
Updated statistics and figures to incorporate the most recent data on global trade flows and foreign direct
investment
Discussion of the implications of recent political trends (Brexit and the Trump Presidency) and what this might
mean for cross border trade and investment
New closing case: General Motors in China
Chapter 2: National Differences In Political, Economic, and Legal Systems
•
•
•
New opening case: Kenya: An African Lion
Updated data on corruption
New closing case: Transformation in Saudi Arabia
Chapter 3: National Differences In Economic Development
•
•
•
•
•
New opening case: Poland: Eastern Europe’s Economic Miracle
Updated maps, figures, and in-text statistics to reflect most recently available data
Addition of demographic trends to the discussion of Political Economy and Economic Progress
Updated discussion of the spread of democracy to reflect recent countertrends toward greater authoritarianism in
several nations (e.g., Turkey)
New closing case: Brazil’s Struggling Economy
Chapter 4: Differences In Culture
•
•
•
•
•
•
New opening case: Singapore: One of the World’s Most Multicultural Places
Inclusion of a discussion of patience across cultures
Revised the foundation that most religions are now pro-business
New Country Focus: Determining Your Social Class by Birth
New Country Focus: Turkey, Its Religion, and Politics
New closing case: China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan
Chapter 5: Ethics, Corporate Social Responsibility, and Sustainability
•
•
•
•
New opening case: Ericsson, Sweden, and Sustainability
Deepened focus related to United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals
Core focus on ethics as a lead-in to corporate social responsibility and sustainability issues (e.g., UN’s
Sustainable Development Goals).
New closing case: Sustainability Initiatives at Natura, the Bodyshop, and Aesop
Chapter 6: International Trade Theory
•
•
•
•
•
New opening case: A Tale of Two Nations: Ghana and South Korea
Updated Country Focus on China and currency manipulation
Reference to Donal Trump’s trade policies under section on mercantilism
New closing case: Trade Wars are Good and Easy to Win
Updated balance of payments data in the Appendix to reflect 2018 data
Chapter 7: Government Policy and International Trade
•
•
•
New opening case: American Steel Tariffs
Updated discussion of the world trading system to reflect recent developments, including Brexit and the trade
policies of President Trump
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New closing case: The United States and South Korea Strike a Revised Trade Deal
Chapter 8: Foreign Direct Investment
•
•
•
•
New opening case: Starbuck’s Foreign Direct Investment
Updated statistics and figures on foreign direct investment in the world economy to incorporate the most recently
available data
New Management Focus: Burberry Shifts its Entry Strategy in Japan
New closing case: Geely Goes Global
Chapter 9: Regional Economic Integration
•
•
•
•
•
New opening case: The Cost of Brexit
Updated discussion of Brexit
Added discussion of the renegotiation of NAFTA by the Trump administration and the details of the United
States–Canada–Mexico Agreement (USCMA)
Additional discussion of new free trade deals in Africa
Closing case: NAFTA 2.0: The USCMA
Chapter 10: The Foreign Exchange Market
•
•
•
New opening case: Managing Foreign Currency Exposure at 3M
Updated data throughout the chapter to reflect currency exchange rates in 2019.
New closing case: The Fluctuating Value of the Yuan Gives Chinese Business a Lesson in Foreign Exchange
Risk
Chapter 11: The International Monetary System
•
•
•
•
New opening case: Pakistan Takes Another IMF Loan
Updated data and discussion of the floating exchange rate regime through till 2019
New Country Focus: China’s Exchange Rate Regime
New closing case: Can Dollarization Save Venezuela?
Chapter 12: The Global Capital Market
•
•
•
New opening case: Chinese IPOs in the United States
Updated statistics and discussion to reflect most recently available data
New closing case: Saudi Aramco
Chapter 13: The Strategy of International Business
•
•
•
•
•
New opening case: International Strategy in the Sharing Economy
Inclusion of materials on the “sharing economy” related to strategy, including a discussion of Airbnb, Uber,
Lyft, and Turo
New Management Focus: IKEA’s Global Strategy
New Management Focus: Unilever’s Global Organization
New closing case: Red Bull, A Leader in International Strategy
Chapter 14: The Organization of International Business
•
•
New opening case: Bird, Lime, and Organizing Globally
Integration of new materials on the “sharing economy” related to organizations, including a discussion of Bird
and Lime
•
•
Deeper focus on small, medium, and sharing economy organizations
New closing case: Walmart International
Chapter 15: Entering Developed and Emerging Markets
•
•
•
•
New opening case: Volkswagen, Toyota, and GM in China
New scope of the chapter to include entering developed and emerging markets
Inclusion of a discussion of less developed markets and base-of-the-pyramid
New closing case: IKEA Entering India, Finally!
Chapter 16: Exporting, Importing, and Countertrade
•
•
•
•
•
•
New opening case: Higher Education in the U.S. Is about Exporting and International Competitiveness
Revised material on globalEDGETM Diagnostic Tools
New Management Focus: Embraer and Brazilian Importing
New Management Focus: Exporting Desserts by a Hispanic Entrepreneur
New Management Focus: Two Men and a Truck
New closing case: Spotify and SoundCloud
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Chapter 17: Global Production and Supply Chain Management
•
•
•
•
•
New opening case: Blockchain Technology and Global Supply Chains
New material on blockchain technology
New Management Focus: IKEA Production in China
New Management Focus: Amazon’s Global Supply Chains
New closing case: Procter & Gamble Remakes Its Global Supply Chains
Chapter 18: Global Marketing and Business Analytics
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
New chapter title to signal significant new material on Business Analytics
New opening case: Marketing Sneakers
New section on Business Analytics
Revised section: International Marketing Research
Inclusion of more social media topics throughout
New Management Focus: Global Branding, Marvel Studios, and Walt Disney Company
New Management Focus: Burberry’s Social Media Marketing
New closing case: Fake News and Alternative Facts
Chapter 19: Global Human Resource Management
•
•
•
•
New opening case: Evolution of the Kraft Heinz Company
New section: Building a Diverse Global Workforce
New Management Focus: AstraZeneca and Global Staffing Policy
New closing case: Global Mobility at Shell
Chapter 20: Accounting and Finance in the International Business
•
•
•
•
New opening case: Pfizer, Novartis, Bayer, and GlaxoSmithKline
New material on the U.S. corporate tax rate and implications
New Management Focus: Microsoft and Its Foreign Cash Holdings
New closing case: Shoprite—Financial Success of a Food Retailer in Africa
Integrated Cases
All of the 20 integrated cases are new for International Business 13e. Many of these cases build on previous opening and
closing chapter cases that have been revised, updated, and oftentimes adopted a new angle or focus. A unique feature of
the opening and closing cases for the chapters as well as the integrated cases at the back-end of the text is that we cover
all continents of the world and we do so with regional or country issues and large, medium, and small company
scenarios. This makes the 60 total cases we have included in International Business 13e remarkably wealthy as a
learning program.
• Globalization of BMW, Rolls-Royce, and the MINI
• The Decline of Zimbabwe
• Economic Development in Bangladesh
• The Swatch Group and Cultural Uniqueness
• Woolworths’ Corporate Responsibility Strategy
• The Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) is Dead: Long Live the CTPP!
• Boeing and Airbus Are in a Dogfight over Illegal Subsidies
• FDI in the Indian Retail Sector
• Free Trade in Africa
• The Mexican Peso, the Japanese Yen, and Pokemon Go
• Egypt and the IMF
• Alibaba’s Record-Setting IPO
• Sony Corporation: Still a Leader Globally?
• Organizational Architecture at P&G
• Cutco Corporation--Sharpening Your Market Entry
• Tata Motors and Exporting
• Alibaba and Global Supply Chains
• Best Buy Doing a Turnaround Again
• Sodexo: Building a Diverse Global Workforce
• Tesla, Inc.--Subsidizing Tesla Automobiles Globally
BEYOND UNCRITICAL PRESENTATION AND SHALLOW EXPLANATION
Many issues in international business are complex and thus necessitate considerations of pros and cons. To demonstrate
this to students, we have adopted a critical approach that presents the arguments for and against economic Page xii
theories, government policies, business strategies, organizational structures, and so on.
Related to this, we have attempted to explain the complexities of the many theories and phenomena unique to
international business so the student might fully comprehend the statements of a theory or the reasons a phenomenon is
the way it is. We believe that these theories and phenomena are explained in more depth in this work than they are in the
competition, which seem to use the rationale that a shallow explanation is little better than no explanation. In
international business, a little knowledge is indeed a dangerous thing.
PRACTICAL AND RICH APPLICATIONS
We have always believed that it is important to show students how the material covered in the text is relevant to the
actual practice of international business. This is explicit in the later chapters of the book, which focus on the practice of
international business, but it is not always obvious in the first half of the book, which considers macro topics.
Accordingly, at the end of each chapter in Parts Two, Three, and Four—where the focus is on the environment of
international business, as opposed to particular firms—there is a section titled Focus on Managerial Implications. In
this section, the managerial implications of the material discussed in the chapter are clearly explained. Additionally, most
chapters have at least one Management Focus box. The purpose of these boxes is to illustrate the relevance of chapter
material for the practice of international business.
A Did You Know? feature challenges students to view the world around them through the lens of international
business (e.g., Did you know that sugar prices in the United States are much higher than sugar prices in the rest of the
world?). The author recorded short videos explaining the phenomenon.
In addition, each chapter begins with an opening case that sets the stage for the chapter and ends with a closing
case that illustrates the relevance of chapter material for the practice of international business.
To help students go a step further in expanding their application-level understanding of international business, each
chapter incorporates two globalEDGETM research tasks. The exercises dovetail with the content just covered.
INTEGRATED PROGRESSION OF TOPICS
A weakness of many texts is that they lack a tight, integrated flow of topics from chapter to chapter. This book explains
to students in Chapter 1 how the book’s topics are related to each other. Integration has been achieved by organizing the
material so that each chapter builds on the material of the previous ones in a logical fashion.
Part One
Chapter 1 provides an overview of the key issues to be addressed and explains the plan of the book. Globalization of
markets and globalization of production is the core focus.
Part Two
Chapters 2 through 4 focus on country differences in political economy and culture, and Chapter 5 on ethics, corporate
social responsibility, and sustainability issues in international business. Most international business textbooks place this
material at a later point, but we believe it is vital to discuss national differences first. After all, many of the central issues
in international trade and investment, the global monetary system, international business strategy and structure, and
international business functions arise out of national differences in political economy and culture.
Part Three
Chapters 6 through 9 investigate the political economy of global trade and investment. The purpose of this part is to
describe and explain the trade and investment environment in which international business occurs.
Part Four
Chapters 10 and 11 describe and explain the global monetary system, laying out in detail the monetary framework in
which international business transactions are conducted.
Part Five
In Chapters 12 and 13, attention shifts from the environment to the firm. In other words, we move from a macro focus to
a micro focus at this stage of the book. We examine strategies that firms adopt to compete effectively in the international
business environment.
Part Six
In Chapters 14 through 17, the focus narrows further to investigate business functions and related operations. These
chap t er s expl ain how f ir ms can per f ormthei r key f uncti ons —expor ti ng, importing, and counter tr ade; gl obal produ ct i on;
global supply chain management; global marketing; global research and development (R&D); human resource
management—to compete and succeed in the international business environment.
Throughout the book, the relationship of new material to topics discussed in earlier chapters is pointed out to the
students to reinforce their understanding of how the material comprises an integrated whole. We deliberately Page xiii
bring a management focus to the macro chapters (Chapters 1 through 12). We also integrate macro themes in
covering the micro chapters (Chapters 13 through 20).
ACCESSIBLE AND INTERESTING
The international business arena is fascinating and exciting, and we have tried to communicate our enthusiasm for it to
the student. Learning is easier and better if the subject matter is communicated in an interesting, informative, and
accessible manner. One technique we have used to achieve this is weaving interesting anecdotes into the narrative of the
text, that is, stories that illustrate theory.
Most chapters also have a Country Focus box that provides background on the political, economic, social, or
cultural aspects of countries grappling with an international business issue.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Numerous people deserve to be thanked for their assistance in preparing this book. First, thank you to all the people at
McGraw-Hill Education who have worked with us on this project:
Peter Jurmu, Portfolio Manager
Haley Burmeister, Product Developer
Nicole Young, Senior Marketing Manager
Julia Blankenship, Marketing Coordinator
Harvey Yep, Content Project Manager (Core)
Keri Johnson, Content Project Manager (Assessment)
Sandy Ludovissy, Senior Buyer
Egzon Shaqiri, Designer
Carrie Burger, Content Licensing Specialist
Second, our thanks go to the reviewers who provided good feedback that helped shape this book:
Yimai Lewis, Georgia State University
Long S. Le, Santa Clara University
Clare R. Greenlaw, Jr., Southern New Hampshire University – COCE
Richard Ajayi, University of Central Florida
Hussain Ahmad, Hofstra University
Erica Kovacs, Indiana University
Marta Szabo White, Georgia State University
C. Jayachandran, Montclair State University, NJ
T.S. Gardner, UNC Wilmington
Marcel Zondag, Western Michigan University
Mamoun Benmamoun, Saint Louis University
Manveer Mann, Montclair State University
Jose Luis Daniel, Saint Xavier University
Walter C. van Hoof, San Jose State University,
San Jose, CA
Riikka M. Sarala, UNC Greensboro
Samuel Okoroafo, University of Toledo, Toledo, Ohio
Pamela S. Evers, University of North Carolina Wilmington
A special thanks to David Closs and David Frayer for allowing us to borrow elements of the sections on Strategic Roles
for Production Facilities; Make-or-Buy Decisions; Global Supply Chain Functions; Coordination in Global Supply
Chains; and Interorganizational Relationships for Chapter 15 of this text from Tomas Hult, David Closs, and David
Frayer (2014), Global Supply Chain Management, New York: McGraw-Hill.
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Page xvi
CONTENTS
part one
Introduction and Overview
CHAPTER 1
Globalization 2
Opening Case
How the iPhone Is Made: Apple’s Global Production System 3
Introduction 4
What Is Globalization? 6
The Globalization of Markets 6
The Globalization of Production 7
Management Focus
Boeing’s Global Production System 8
The Emergence of Global Institutions 9
Drivers of Globalization 11
Declining Trade and Investment Barriers 11
Role of Technological Change 13
The Changing Demographics of the Global Economy 15
The Changing World Output and World Trade Picture 15
Country Focus
India’s Software Sector 17
The Changing Foreign Direct Investment Picture 17
The Changing Nature of the Multinational Enterprise 19
Management Focus
The Dalian Wanda Group 20
The Changing World Order 21
Global Economy of the Twenty-First Century 22
The Globalization Debate 22
Antiglobalization Protests 23
Country Focus
Protesting Globalization in France 24
Globalization, Jobs, and Income 24
Globalization, Labor Policies, and the Environment 26
Globalization and National Sovereignty 28
Globalization and the World’s Poor 29
Managing in the Global Marketplace 31
Key Terms 33
Summary 33
Critical Thinking and Discussion Questions 34
Research Task 34
Closing Case
General Motors in China 35
Endnotes 36
part two
National Differences
CHAPTER 2
National Differences in Political, Economic, and Legal Systems 38
Opening Case
Kenya: An African Lion 39
Introduction 40
Political Systems 41
Collectivism and Individualism 41
Democracy and Totalitarianism 43
Country Focus
Putin’s Russia 44
Economic Systems 46
Market Economy 46
Command Economy 47
Mixed Economy 48
Legal Systems 49
Different Legal Systems 49
Differences in Contract Law 50
Property Rights and Corruption 51
Country Focus
Corruption in Brazil 53
Management Focus
Did Walmart Violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act? 54
The Protection of Intellectual Property 55
Management Focus
Starbucks Wins Key Trademark Case in China 56
Product Safety and Product Liability 57
Focus on Managerial Implications: The Macro Environment Influences Market Attractiveness 57
Key Terms 58
Summary 58
Critical Thinking and Discussion Questions 59
Research Task 59
Closing Case
Transformation in Saudi Arabia 59
Endnotes 61
CHAPTER 3
National Differences in Economic Development 62
Opening Case
Poland: Eastern Europe’s Economic Miracle 63
Introduction 64
Differences in Economic Development 64
Map 3.1 GNI per Capita, 2018 65
Map 3.2 GNI PPP per Capita, 2018 66
Map 3.3 Average Annual Growth Rate in GDP (%), 2009–2018 67
Broader Conceptions of Development: Amartya Sen 68
Map 3.4 Human Development Index, 2017 69
Page xvii
Political Economy and Economic Progress 69
Innovation and Entrepreneurship Are the Engines of Growth 69
Innovation and Entrepreneurship Require a Market Economy 70
Innovation and Entrepreneurship Require Strong Property Rights 70
The Required Political System 71
Economic Progress Begets Democracy 71
Country Focus
Property Rights in China 72
Geography, Education, and Economic Development 72
States in Transition 74
The Spread of Democracy 74
Map 3.5 Freedom in the World, 2019 74
The New World Order and Global Terrorism 76
The Spread of Market-Based Systems 77
Map 3.6 Index of Economic Freedom, 2019 79
The Nature of Economic Transformation 79
Deregulation 79
Country Focus
India’s Economic Transformation 80
Privatization 81
Legal Systems 81
Implications of Changing Political Economy 82
Focus on Managerial Implications: Benefits, Costs, Risks, and Overall Attractiveness of Doing Business Internationally 83
Key Terms 87
Summary 87
Critical Thinking and Discussion Questions 87
Research Task 88
Closing Case
Brazil’s Struggling Economy 88
Endnotes 90
CHAPTER 4
Differences in Culture 92
Opening Case
Singapore: One of the World’ Most Multicultural Places 93
Introduction 94
What Is Culture? 95
Values and Norms 96
Culture, Society, and the Nation-State 98
Determinants of Culture 99
Social Structure 99
Individuals and Groups 100
Social Stratification 102
Country Focus
Determining Your Social Class by Birth 103
Religious and Ethical Systems 105
Map 4.1 World Religions 106
Christianity 106
Islam 107
Country Focus
Turkey: Its Religion and Politics 110
Hinduism 111
Buddhism 112
Confucianism 113
Management Focus
China and Its Guanxi 114
Language 115
Spoken Language 115
Unspoken Language 116
Education 116
Culture and Business 117
Cultural Change 120
Focus on Managerial Implications: Cultural Literacy and Competitive Advantage 122
Key Terms 124
Summary 124
Critical Thinking and Discussion Questions 125
Research Task 126
Closing Case
China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan 126
Endnotes 128
CHAPTER 5
Ethics, Corporate Social Responsibility, and Sustainability 132
Opening Case
Ericsson, Sweden, and Sustainability 133
Introduction 134
Ethics and International Business 135
Employment Practices 136
Human Rights 137
Management Focus
“Emissionsgate” at Volkswagen 138
Environmental Pollution 139
Corruption 140
Ethical Dilemmas 142
The Roots of Unethical Behavior 143
Personal Ethics 143
Decision-Making Processes 144
Organizational Culture 144
Unrealistic Performance Goals 145
Leadership 145
Societal Culture 145
Philosophical Approaches to Ethics 146
Straw Men 146
Utilitarian and Kantian Ethics 148
Rights Theories 149
Justice Theories 150
Focus on Managerial Implications: Making Ethical Decisions Internationally 151
Management Focus
Corporate Social Responsibility at Stora Enso 156
Key Terms 157
Summary 158
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Critical Thinking and Discussion Questions 159
Research Task 159
Closing Case
Sustainability Initiatives at Natura, The Body Shop, and Aesop 160
Endnotes 161
part three
The Global Trade and Investment Environment
CHAPTER 6
International Trade Theory 164
Opening Case
A Tale of Two Nations: Ghana and South Korea 165
Introduction 166
An Overview of Trade Theory 166
The Benefits of Trade 167
The Pattern of International Trade 168
Trade Theory and Government Policy 169
Mercantilism 169
Country Focus
Is China Manipulating Its Currency in Pursuit of a Neo-Mercantilist Policy? 170
Absolute Advantage 170
Comparative Advantage 172
The Gains from Trade 173
Qualifications and Assumptions 175
Extensions of the Ricardian Model 175
Country Focus
Moving U.S. White-Collar Jobs Offshore 179
Heckscher–Ohlin Theory 180
The Leontief Paradox 181
The Product Life-Cycle Theory 182
Product Life-Cycle Theory in the Twenty-First Century 183
New Trade Theory 183
Increasing Product Variety and Reducing Costs 184
Economies of Scale, First-Mover Advantages, and the Pattern of Trade 184
Implications of New Trade Theory 185
National Competitive Advantage: Porter’s Diamond 186
Factor Endowments 187
Demand Conditions 188
Related and Supporting Industries 188
Firm Strategy, Structure, and Rivalry 188
Evaluating Porter’s Theory 189
Focus on Managerial Implications: Location, First-Mover Advantages, and Government Policy 189
Key Terms 191
Summary 191
Critical Thinking and Discussion Questions 192
Research Task 193
Closing Case
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“Trade Wars Are Good and Easy to Win” 193
Appendix: International Trade and the Balance of Payments 195
Endnotes 197
CHAPTER 7
Government Policy and International Trade 200
Opening Case
American Steel Tariffs 201
Introduction 202
Instruments of Trade Policy 202
Tariffs 202
Subsidies 203
Country Focus
Are the Chinese Illegally Subsidizing Auto Exports? 204
Import Quotas and Voluntary Export Restraints 205
Export Tariffs and Bans 206
Local Content Requirements 206
Administrative Policies 207
Antidumping Policies 207
The Case for Government Intervention 207
Management Focus
Protecting U.S. Magnesium 208
Political Arguments for Intervention 209
Economic Arguments for Intervention 211
The Revised Case for Free Trade 213
Retaliation and Trade War 213
Domestic Policies 214
Development of the World Trading System 214
From Smith to the Great Depression 215
1947–1979: GATT, Trade Liberalization, and Economic Growth 215
1980–1993: Protectionist Trends 215
The Uruguay Round and the World Trade Organization 216
WTO: Experience to Date 217
The Future of the WTO: Unresolved Issues and the Doha Round 218
Country Focus
Estimating the Gains from Trade for the United States 221
Multilateral and Bilateral Trade Agreements 222
The World Trading System under Threat 222
Focus on Managerial Implications: Trade Barriers, Firm Strategy, and Policy Implications 223
Key Terms 225
Summary 225
Critical Thinking and Discussion Questions 226
Research Task 226
Closing Case
The United States and South Korea Strike a Revised Trade Deal 227
Endnotes 228
CHAPTER 8
Foreign Direct Investment 230
Opening Case
Starbucks’ Foreign Direct Investment 231
Introduction 232
Foreign Direct Investment in the World Economy 232
Trends in FDI 232
The Direction of FDI 233
The Source of FDI 234
Country Focus
Foreign Direct Investment in China 235
The Form of FDI: Acquisitions versus Greenfield Investments 236
Theories of Foreign Direct Investment 236
Why Foreign Direct Investment? 236
Management Focus
Burberry Shifts Its Entry Strategy in Japan 237
The Pattern of Foreign Direct Investment 240
The Eclectic Paradigm 241
Political Ideology and Foreign Direct Investment 242
The Radical View 242
The Free Market View 243
Pragmatic Nationalism 243
Shifting Ideology 244
Benefits and Costs of FDI 244
Host-Country Benefits 245
Host-Country Costs 247
Home-Country Benefits 248
Home-Country Costs 249
International Trade Theory and FDI 249
Government Policy Instruments and FDI 249
Home-Country Policies 249
Host-Country Policies 250
International Institutions and the Liberalization of FDI 251
Focus on Managerial Implications: FDI and Government Policy 252
Key Terms 254
Summary 254
Critical Thinking and Discussion Questions 255
Research Task 256
Closing Case
Geely Goes Global 256
Endnotes 257
CHAPTER 9
Regional Economic Integration 260
Opening Case
The Cost of Brexit 261
Introduction 262
Levels of Economic Integration 263
The Case for Regional Integration 265
The Economic Case for Integration 265
The Political Case for Integration 265
Impediments to Integration 266
The Case against Regional Integration 267
Regional Economic Integration in Europe 267
Evolution of the European Union 267
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Map 9.1 Member States of the European Union in 2019 268
Political Structure of the European Union 269
Management Focus
The European Commission and Google 270
The Single European Act 271
The Establishment of the Euro 272
Enlargement of the European Union 275
Country Focus
The Greek Sovereign Debt Crisis 276
British Exit from the European Union (BREXIT) 277
Regional Economic Integration in the Americas 278
The North American Free Trade Agreement 278
Map 9.2 Economic Integration in the Americas 279
The United States–Canada–Mexico Agreement (USCMA) 281
The Andean Community 282
Mercosur 282
Central American Common Market, CAFTA, and CARICOM 283
Regional Economic Integration Elsewhere 284
Association of Southeast Asian Nations 284
Regional Trade Blocs in Africa 284
Map 9.3 ASEAN countries 285
Other Trade Agreements 286
Focus on Managerial Implications: Regional Economic Integration Threats 286
Key Terms 288
Summary 288
Critical Thinking and Discussion Questions 289
Research Task 290
Closing Case
NAFTA 2.0: The USCMA 290
Endnotes 291
part four
The Global Monetary System
CHAPTER 10
The Foreign Exchange Market 294
Opening Case
Managing Foreign Currency Exposure at 3M 295
Introduction 296
The Functions of the Foreign Exchange Market 297
Currency Conversion 297
Insuring against Foreign Exchange Risk 299
Management Focus
Embraer and the Gyrations of the Brazilian Real 301
The Nature of the Foreign Exchange Market 301
Economic Theories of Exchange Rate Determination 302
Prices and Exchange Rates 303
Country Focus
Quantitative Easing, Inflation, and the Value of the U.S. Dollar 307
Interest Rates and Exchange Rates 308
Investor Psychology and Bandwagon Effects 309
Summary of Exchange Rate Theories 309
Exchange Rate Forecasting 310
The Efficient Market School 310
The Inefficient Market School 310
Approaches to Forecasting 310
Currency Convertibility 311
Focus on Managerial Implications: Foreign Exchange Rate Risk 312
Key Terms 315
Summary 315
Critical Thinking and Discussion Questions 316
Research Task 317
Closing Case
The Fluctuating Value of the Yuan Gives Chinese Businesses a Lesson in Foreign Exchange Risk 317
Endnotes 318
CHAPTER 11
The International Monetary System 320
Opening Case
Pakistan Takes Another IMF Loan 321
Introduction 322
The Gold Standard 323
Mechanics of the Gold Standard 323
Strength of the Gold Standard 324
The Period between the Wars: 1918–1939 324
The Bretton Woods System 325
The Role of the IMF 325
The Role of the World Bank 326
The Collapse of the Fixed Exchange Rate System 327
The Floating Exchange Rate Regime 328
The Jamaica Agreement 328
Exchange Rates since 1973 328
Fixed versus Floating Exchange Rates 331
The Case for Floating Exchange Rates 331
The Case for Fixed Exchange Rates 332
Who Is Right? 333
Exchange Rate Regimes in Practice 333
Country Focus
China’s Exchange Rate Regime 334
Pegged Exchange Rates 335
Currency Boards 335
Crisis Management by the IMF 336
Financial Crises in the Post–Bretton Woods Era 337
Country Focus
The IMF and Iceland’s Economic Recovery 337
Evaluating the IMF’s Policy Prescriptions 338
Focus on Managerial Implications: Currency Management, Business Strategy, and Government Relations 341
Management Focus
Airbus and the Euro 342
Key Terms 344
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Summary 344
Critical Thinking and Discussion Questions 345
Research Task 345
Closing Case
Can Dollarization Save Venezuela? 346
Endnotes 347
CHAPTER 12
The Global Capital Market 348
Opening Case
Chinese IPOs in the United States 349
Introduction 350
Benefits of the Global Capital Market 350
The Functions of a Generic Capital Market 350
Attractions of the Global Capital Market 351
Management Focus
The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Taps the Global Capital Market 353
Growth of the Global Capital Market 355
Global Capital Market Risks 357
Country Focus
Did the Global Capital Markets Fail Mexico? 358
The Eurocurrency Market 359
Genesis and Growth of the Market 359
Attractions of the Eurocurrency Market 359
Drawbacks of the Eurocurrency Market 361
The Global Bond Market 361
Attractions of the Global Bond Market 362
The Global Equity Market 362
Foreign Exchange Risk and the Cost of Capital 363
Focus on Managerial Implications: Growth of the Global Capital Market 364
Key Terms 364
Summary 365
Critical Thinking and Discussion Questions 365
Research Task 366
Closing Case
Saudi Aramco 366
Endnotes 368
part five
The Strategy and Structure of International Business
CHAPTER 13
The Strategy of International Business 370
Opening Case
International Strategy in the Sharing Economy 371
Introduction 372
Page xxii
Strategy and the Firm 373
Value Creation 374
Strategic Positioning 375
Management Focus
AB InBev, Beer Globally, and Creating Value 377
The Firm as a Value Chain 378
Global Expansion, Profitability, and Profit Growth 380
Expanding the Market 381
Location Economies 382
Experience Effects 384
Leveraging Subsidiary Skills 386
Profitability and Profit Growth Summary 386
Cost Pressures and Pressures for Local Responsiveness 387
Pressures for Cost Reductions 387
Management Focus
IKEA’s Global Strategy 388
Pressures for Local Responsiveness 388
Choosing a Strategy 392
Global Standardization Strategy 393
Localization Strategy 393
Management Focus
Unilever’s Responsiveness to Its Dutch–British Roots 394
Transnational Strategy 395
International Strategy 396
The Evolution of Strategy 396
Key Terms 397
Summary 397
Critical Thinking and Discussion Questions 398
Research Task 398
Closing Case
Red Bull: A Leader in International Strategy 399
Endnotes 400
CHAPTER 14
The Organization of International Business 402
Opening Case
Bird, Lime, and Organizing Globally 403
Introduction 404
Organizational Architecture 405
Organizational Structure 406
Vertical Differentiation 406
Horizontal Differentiation 408
Management Focus
Dow—(Failed) Early Global Matrix Adopter 414
Integrating Mechanisms 415
Control Systems and Incentives 420
Types of Control Systems 420
Incentive Systems 421
Control Systems and Incentives 422
Processes 424
Organizational Culture 425
Creating and Maintaining Organizational Culture 425
Organizational Culture and Performance 427
Management Focus
Lincoln Electric and Culture 428
Synthesis: Strategy and Architecture 429
Localization Strategy 429
International Strategy 430
Global Standardization Strategy 430
Transnational Strategy 431
Environment, Strategy, Architecture, and Performance 431
Organizational Change 432
Organizational Inertia 432
Implementing Organizational Change 433
Key Terms 434
Summary 435
Critical Thinking and Discussion Questions 435
Research Task 436
Closing Case
Walmart International 436
Endnotes 438
CHAPTER 15
Entering Developed and Emerging Markets 440
Opening Case
Volkswagen, Toyota, and GM in China 441
Introduction 442
Basic Entry Decisions 443
Which Foreign Markets? 443
Management Focus
Tesco’s International Growth Strategy 444
Timing of Entry 445
Scale of Entry and Strategic Commitments 446
Market Entry Summary 447
Entry Modes 448
Exporting 448
Turnkey Projects 449
Licensing 450
Franchising 451
Joint Ventures 452
Wholly Owned Subsidiaries 453
Selecting an Entry Mode 454
Core Competencies and Entry Mode 454
Pressures for Cost Reductions and Entry Mode 456
Greenfield Venture or Acquisition? 456
Pros and Cons of Acquisitions 456
Pros and Cons of Greenfield Ventures 458
Which Choice? 459
Strategic Alliances 459
Advantages of Strategic Alliances 460
Disadvantages of Strategic Alliances 460
Management Focus
Gazprom and Global Strategic Alliances 461
Page xxiii
Making Alliances Work 461
Key Terms 464
Summary 464
Critical Thinking and Discussion Questions 465
Research Task 465
Closing Case
IKEA Entering India, Finally! 466
Endnotes 467
part six
International Business Functions
CHAPTER 16
Exporting, Importing, and Countertrade 470
Opening Case
Higher-Education Exporting and International Competitiveness 471
Introduction 472
The Promise and Pitfalls of Exporting 473
Management Focus
Embraer and Brazilian Importing 476
Improving Export Performance 476
International Comparisons 477
Information Sources 477
Management Focus
Exporting Desserts by a Hispanic Entrepreneur 478
Service Providers 479
Export Strategy 480
Management Focus
Two Men and a Truck 481
The globalEDGETM Exporting Tool 482
Export and Import Financing 483
Lack of Trust 483
Letter of Credit 485
Draft 485
Bill of Lading 486
A Typical International Trade Transaction 486
Export Assistance 488
The Export-Import Bank 488
Export Credit Insurance 489
Countertrade 489
The Popularity of Countertrade 490
Types of Countertrade 490
Pros and Cons of Countertrade 491
Key Terms 492
Summary 492
Critical Thinking and Discussion Questions 493
Research Task 493
Closing Case
Spotify and SoundCloud 494
Endnotes 495
Page xxiv
CHAPTER 17
Global Production and Supply Chain Management 498
Opening Case
Blockchain Technology and Global Supply Chains 499
Introduction 500
Strategy, Production, and Supply Chain Management 501
Where to Produce 504
Country Factors 504
Management Focus
IKEA Production in China 505
Technological Factors 505
Production Factors 508
The Hidden Costs of Foreign Locations 511
Management Focus
Amazon’s Global Supply Chains 512
Make-or-Buy Decisions 513
Global Supply Chain Functions 516
Global Logistics 516
Global Purchasing 518
Managing a Global Supply Chain 519
Role of Just-in-Time Inventory 519
Role of Information Technology 520
Coordination in Global Supply Chains 521
Interorganizational Relationships 522
Key Terms 523
Summary 523
Critical Thinking and Discussion Questions 524
Research Task 525
Closing Case
Procter & Gamble Remakes Its Global Supply Chains 525
Endnotes 526
CHAPTER 18
Global Marketing and Business Analytics 528
Opening Case
Marketing Sneakers 529
Introduction 530
Globalization of Markets and Brands 531
Market Segmentation 533
Management Focus
Global Branding, Marvel Studios, and the Walt Disney Company 534
Business Analytics 535
International Marketing Research 536
Product Attributes 540
Cultural Differences 540
Economic Development 541
Product and Technical Standards 541
Distribution Strategy 542
Differences between Countries 542
Choosing a Distribution Strategy 544
Communication Strategy 545
Management Focus
Burberry’s Social Media Marketing 546
Barriers to International Communication 547
Push versus Pull Strategies 548
Global Advertising 549
Pricing Strategy 550
Price Discrimination 550
Strategic Pricing 552
Regulatory Influences on Prices 553
Configuring the Marketing Mix 554
Product Development and R&D 554
The Location of R&D 555
Integrating R&D, Marketing, and Production 556
Cross-Functional Teams 557
Building Global R&D Capabilities 558
Key Terms 559
Summary 560
Critical Thinking and Discussion Questions 561
Research Task 561
Closing Case
Fake News and Alternative Facts 562
Endnotes 563
CHAPTER 19
Global Human Resource Management 566
Opening Case
Evolution of the Kraft Heinz Company 567
Introduction 568
Strategic Role of Global HRM: Managing a Global Workforce 569
Staffing Policy 570
Types of Staffing Policies 571
Expatriate Managers 574
Management Focus
AstraZeneca and Global Staffing Policy 577
Global Mindset 578
Training and Management Development 579
Training for Expatriate Managers 580
Repatriation of Expatriates 580
Management Development and Strategy 581
Management Focus
Monsanto’s Repatriation Program 582
Performance Appraisal 582
Performance Appraisal Problems 583
Guidelines for Performance Appraisal 583
Compensation 583
National Differences in Compensation 583
Page xxv
Expatriate Pay 584
Management Focus
McDonald’s Global Compensation Practices 585
Building a Diverse Global Workforce 586
International Labor Relations 588
The Concerns of Organized Labor 588
The Strategy of Organized Labor 589
Approaches to Labor Relations 589
Key Terms 590
Summary 590
Critical Thinking and Discussion Questions 591
Research Task 591
Closing Case
Global Mobility at Shell 592
Endnotes 593
CHAPTER 20
Accounting and Finance in International Business 596
Opening Case
Pfizer, Novartis, Bayer, and GlaxoSmithKline 597
Introduction 598
National Differences in Accounting Standards 599
International Accounting Standards 600
Country Focus
Chinese Accounting 601
Accounting Aspects of Control Systems 602
Exchange Rate Changes and Control Systems 603
Transfer Pricing and Control Systems 604
Separation of Subsidiary and Manager Performance 605
Financial Management: The Investment Decision 605
Capital Budgeting 606
Project and Parent Cash Flows 606
Management Focus
Black Sea Oil and Gas Ltd. 607
Adjusting for Political and Economic Risk 607
Risk and Capital Budgeting 608
Financial Management: The Financing Decision 609
Financial Management: Global Money Management 610
Minimizing Cash Balances 610
Reducing Transaction Costs 611
Managing the Tax Burden 612
Management Focus
Microsoft and Its Foreign Cash Holdings 614
Moving Money across Borders 614
Key Terms 618
Summary 619
Critical Thinking and Discussion Questions 620
Research Task 620
Closing Case
Shoprite: The Financial Success of a Food Retailer in Africa 621
Endnotes 622
part seven
Integrative Cases
Globalization of BMW, Rolls-Royce, and the MINI 625
The Decline of Zimbabwe 627
Economic Development in Bangladesh 629
The Swatch Group and Cultural Uniqueness 630
Woolworths’ Corporate Responsibility Strategy 632
The Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) Is Dead: Long Live the CPTPP! 634
Boeing and Airbus Are in a Dogfight over Illegal Subsidies 636
FDI in the Indian Retail Sector 637
Free Trade in Africa 639
The Mexican Peso, the Japanese Yen, and Pokémon Go 641
Egypt and the IMF 642
Alibaba’s Record-Setting IPO 643
Sony Corporation: Still a Leader Globally? 644
Organizational Architecture at P&G 646
Cutco Corporation—Sharpening Your Market Entry 647
Tata Motors and Exporting 649
Alibaba and Global Supply Chains 650
Best Buy Doing a Turnaround Again 651
Sodexo: Building a Diverse Global Workforce 653
Tesla, Inc.—Subsidizing Tesla Automobiles Globally 654
Glossary 656
Indexes 666
Page xxvi
International
Business
Competing in the Global Marketplace
13e
Page 1
part one Introduction and Overview
Page 2
Globalization
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
After reading this chapter, you will be able to:
LO1-1
Understand what is meant by the term globalization.
LO1-2
Recognize the main drivers of globalization.
LO1-3
Describe the changing nature of the global economy.
LO1-4
Explain the main arguments in the debate over the impact of globalization.
LO1-5
Understand how the process of globalization is creating opportunities and challenges for management practice.
Qilai Shen/In Pictures Ltd./Corbis/Getty Images
How the iPhone Is Made: Apple’s Global Production System
OPENING CASE
In its early days, Apple usually didn’t look beyond its own backyard to manufacture its devices. A few years after Apple Page 3
started making its Macintosh computer back in 1983, Steve Jobs bragged that it was “a machine that was made in America.”
As late as the early 2000s, Apple still manufactured many of its computers at the company’s iMac plant in Elk Grove, California.
Jobs often said that he was as proud of the Apple’s manufacturing plants as he was of the devices themselves.
By 2004, however, Apple had largely turned to foreign manufacturing. The shift to offshore production and assembly reached its
peak with the iconic iPhone, which Apple first introduced in 2007. The iPhone contains hundreds of parts, an estimated 90 percent of
which are manufactured abroad. Advanced semiconductors come from Germany and Taiwan, memory from Korea and Japan, display
panels and circuitry from Korea and Taiwan, rare metals from Africa and Asia, and the gyroscope used for tracking the iPhone’s
1
orientation comes from Switzerland. Apple’s major subcontractor, the Taiwanese multinational firm, Foxconn, assembles half of all
the iPhones sold in the world today at a huge factory in China. Foxconn also has factories devoted to iPhone assembly at several other
locations, including Brazil and India. Another Taiwanese-based company, Pegatron, also assembles iPhones for Apple at a factory in
China.
Apple still employs some 80,000 people in the United States, and it has kept important activities at home, including product
design, software engineering, and marketing. Furthermore, Apple claims that its business supports another 450,000 jobs at U.S.-based
suppliers. For example, the glass for the iPhone is manufactured at Corning’s U.S. plants in Kentucky, Analog Devices in
Massachusetts produces chips that enable the iPhone’s touch display, and a Texas Instruments plant in Maine makes electronic
components that go in the iPhone. However, over 1.5 million people are involved in the engineering, building, and final assembly of
its products outside of the United States, many of them working at subcontractors like Foxconn.
When explaining its decision to assemble the iPhone in China, Apple cites a number of factors. While it is true that labor costs
are lower in China, Apple executives point out that labor costs only account for a small portion of the total value of its products and
are not the main driver of location decisions. Far more important, according to Apple, is the ability of its Chinese subcontractors to
respond very quickly to requests from Apple to scale production up and down. In a famous illustration of this capability, back in 2007
Steve Jobs demanded that a glass screen replace the plastic screen on his prototype iPhone. Jobs didn’t like the look and feel of plastic
screens, which at the time were standard in the industry, nor did he like the way they scratched easily. This last-minute change in the
design of the iPhone put Apple’s market introduction date at risk. Apple had selected Corning to manufacture large panes of
strengthened glass, but finding a manufacturer that could cut those panes into millions of iPhone screens wasn’t easy. Then, a bid
arrived from a Chinese factory. When the Apple team visited the factory, they found that the plant’s owners were already constructing
a new wing to cut the glass and were installing equipment. “This is in case you give us the contract,” the manager said. The plant also
had a warehouse full of glass samples for Apple, and a team of engineers available to work with Apple. They had built onsite
dormitories so the factory could run three shifts seven days a week to meet Apple’s demanding production schedule. The Chinese
company got the bid.
Another critical advantage of China for Apple was that it was much easier to hire engineers there. Apple calculated that about
8,700 industrial engineers were needed to oversee and guide the 200,000 assembly-line workers involved in manufacturing the
original iPhone. The company had estimated it would take as long as nine months to find that many engineers in the United States. In
China, it took 15 days.
Also important is the clustering together of factories in China. Many of the factories providing components for the iPhone are
located close to Foxconn’s assembly plant. As one executive noted, “The entire supply chain is in China. You need a thousand rubber
gaskets? That’s the factory next door. You need a million screws? That factory is a block away. You need a screw made a little bit
different? That will take three hours.”*
All this being said, there are drawbacks to outsourcing to China. Several of Apple’s subcontractors have been targeted for their
poor working conditions. Criticisms include low pay of line workers, long hours, mandatory overtime for little or no additional pay,
and poor safety records. Some former Apple executives say there is an unresolved tension within the company: Executives want to
improve working conditions within the factories of subcontractors, such as Foxconn, but that dedication falters when it conflicts with
crucial supplier relationships or the fast delivery of new products. In addition, Apple’s outsourcing decisions have been criticized by
President Trump, who argues that the company is guilty of moving U.S. jobs overseas. While Apple disagrees with this assessment, it
has responded by increasing its investment in U.S. facilities. In 2018, for example, the company announced it would invest $30
billion over five years to create 20,000 new Apple jobs in the United States. Most of these jobs, however, are expected to be in
software development and data center operations, not manufacturing and assembly.
*C. Duhigg and K. Bradsher, “How U.S. Lost Out on iPhone Work.” The New York Times, January 22, 2012.
Sources: Sam Costello, “Where Is the iPhone Made?" Lifewire, July 14, 2018; David Barboza, “How China Built iPhone City with Billions in Perks for Apple’s Partner,” The
New York Times, December 29, 2016; Gu Huini, “Human Costs Are Built into iPad in China,” The New York Times, January 26, 2012; Chuck Jones, “Apple’s $350 Billion US
Contribution Was Already on the Cards,” Forbes, January 19, 2018.
Page 4
Introduction
Over the past five decades, a fundamental shift has been occurring in the world economy. We have been moving away
from a world in which national economies were relatively self-contained entities, isolated from each other by barriers to
cross-border trade and investment; by distance, time zones, and language; and by national differences in government
regulation, culture, and business systems. We have moved toward a world in which barriers to cross-border trade and
investment have declined; perceived distance is shrinking due to advances in transportation and telecommunications
technology; material culture is starting to look similar the world over; and national economies are merging into an
interdependent, integrated global economic system. The process by which this transformation is occurring is commonly
referred to as globalization.
At the same time, recent political events have raised some questions about the inevitability of the globalization
process. The exit of the United Kingdom from the European Union (Brexit), the renegotiation of the North American
Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) by the Trump Administration, and trade disputes between the United States and many
of its trading partners, including most notably China, have all contributed to uncertainty about the future of globalization.
While the world seems unlikely to pull back significantly from globalization, there is no doubt that the benefits of
globalization are more in dispute now than at any time in the last half century. This is a new reality, albeit perhaps a
temporary one, but it is one the international business community will have to adjust to.
The opening case illustrates how one company, Apple, has taken advantage of globalization. Apple has created a
global supply chain to efficiently produce its icon iPhone. While product design and software development are
undertaken in California, component parts are manufactured all over the world, and the final product is assembled for
Apple by Foxconn in factories in China, Brazil, India, and elsewhere. In configuring the production system of the iPhone
in this manner, Apple is trying to partner with the most efficient subcontractors, wherever in the world they might reside.
Apple could not have configured its production system in this manner had it not been for the systematic reductions in
barriers to cross-border trade and investment that have occurred over the last half century.
At the same time, Apple has been criticized by President Trump for placing too much productive activity outside of
the United States. Moreover, trade disputes between the United States and China have raised the possibility that China
may at some point not be the optimal location for assembling the iPhone. Apple has started to adjust its strategy to
account for the potential risks here, establishing assembly operations outside of China (in India, for example), increasing
its investment in the United States (in 2018, Apple announced it would invest $30 billion over five years in U.S.
facilities, creating 20,000 new jobs in the process), and working with U.S.-based suppliers to help them become efficient
Apple partners (Apple has established a $5 billion fund to help those suppliers upgrade their capabilities). Thus, Apple is
taking advantage of globalization, and simultaneously hedging against any possible pullback from the level of
globalization that existed in 2016, which for now at least may have been a high-water mark, albeit a temporary one.
Proponents of increased global trade argue that cross-cultural engagement and trade across country borders is the
future and that returning back to a nationalistic perspective is the past. On the other hand, the nationalistic argument rests
in citizens wanting their country to be sovereign, self-sufficient as much as possible, and basically in charge of their own
economy and country environment. We will touch on many aspects of this debate throughout this text’s 20 integrated
chapters.
Globalization now has an impact on almost everything we do. For example, an American medical doctor—let’s call
her Laurie—might drive to work at her pediatric office in a sports utility vehicle (SUV) that was designed in Stuttgart,
Germany, and assembled in Leipzig, Germany, and Bratislava, Slovakia, by Porsche from components from parts
suppliers worldwide, which in turn were fabricated from Korean steel and Malaysian rubber. Laurie may have filled her
car with gasoline at a Shell service station owned by a British-Dutch multinational company. The gasoline could Page 5
have been made from oil pumped out of a well off the coast of Africa by a French oil company that transported it
to the United States in a ship owned by a Greek shipping line. While driving to work, Laurie might talk to her
stockbroker (using a hands-free, in-car speaker) on an Apple iPhone that was designed in California and assembled in
China using chip sets produced in Japan and Europe, glass made by Corning in Kentucky, and memory chips from South
Korea. Perhaps on her way, Laurie might tell the stockbroker to purchase shares in Lenovo, a multinational Chinese PC
manufacturer whose operational headquarters is in North Carolina and whose shares are listed on the New York Stock
Exchange.
This is the world in which we live. In many cases, we simply do not know, or perhaps even care, where a product
was designed and where it was made. Just a couple of decades ago, “Made in the USA” or “Made in Germany” had
strong meaning and referred to something. The U.S. often stood for quality, and Germany often stood for sophisticated
engineering. Now the country of origin for a product has given way to, for example, “Made by BMW,” and the company
is the quality assurance platform, not the country. In many cases, it goes even beyond the company to the personal
relationship a customer has developed with a representative of the company, and so we focus on what has become known
as CRM (Customer Relationship Management).
Whether it is still the quality associated with the country of origin of a product, or the assurance given by a specific
company regardless of where they manufacture their product, we live in a world where the volume of goods, services,
and investments crossing national borders has expanded faster than world output for more than half a century. It is a
world in which international institutions such as the World Trade Organization and gatherings of leaders from the
world’s most powerful economies continue to work for even lower barriers to cross-border trade and investment. The
symbols of material culture and popular culture are increasingly global, from Coca-Cola and Starbucks, to Sony
PlayStation, Facebook, Netflix video streaming service, IKEA stores, and Apple iPads and iPhones. Vigorous and vocal
groups protest against globalization, which they blame for a list of ills from unemployment in developed nations to
environmental degradation and the Westernization or Americanization of local cultures. These protesters come from
environmental groups, which have been around for some time, but more recently also from nationalistic groups focused
on their countries being more sovereign.
For businesses, the globalization process has many opportunities. Firms can expand their revenues by selling
around the world and/or reduce their costs by producing in nations where key inputs, including labor, are cheap. The
global expansion of enterprises has been facilitated by generally favorable political and economic trends. This has
allowed businesses both large and small, from both advanced nations and developing nations, to expand internationally.
As globalization unfolds, it is transforming industries and creating anxiety among those who believed their jobs were
protected from foreign competition. Advances in technology, lower transportation costs, and the rise of skilled workers
in developing countries imply that many services no longer need to be performed where they are delivered. As bestselling author Thomas Friedman has argued, the world is becoming “flat.”1 People living in developed nations no longer
have the playing field tilted in their favor. Increasingly, enterprising individuals based in India, China, or Brazil have the
same opportunities to better themselves as those living in Western Europe, the United States, or Canada.
In this text, we will take a close look at these issues and many more. We will explore how changes in regulations
governing international trade and investment, when coupled with changes in political systems and technology, have
dramatically altered the competitive playing field confronting many businesses. We will discuss the resulting
opportunities and threats and review the strategies that managers can pursue to exploit the opportunities and counter the
threats. We will consider whether globalization benefits or harms national economies. We will look at what economic
theory has to say about the outsourcing of manufacturing and service jobs to places such as India and China and look at
the benefits and costs of outsourcing, not just to business firms and their employees but to entire economies. Page 6
First, though, we need to get a better overview of the nature and process of globalization, and that is the function
of this first chapter.
What Is Globalization?
LO1-1
Understand what is meant by the term globalization.
As used in this text, globalization refers to the shift toward a more integrated and interdependent world economy.
Globalization has several facets, including the globalization of markets and the globalization of production.
THE GLOBALIZATION OF MARKETS
The globalization of markets refers to the merging of historically distinct and separate national markets into one huge
global marketplace. Falling barriers to cross-border trade and investment have made it easier to sell internationally. It has
been argued for some time that the tastes and preferences of consumers in different nations are beginning to converge on
some global norm, thereby helping create a global market.2 Consumer products such as Citigroup credit cards, CocaCola soft drinks, Sony video games, McDonald’s hamburgers, Starbucks coffee, IKEA furniture, and Apple iPhones are
frequently held up as prototypical examples of this trend. The firms that produce these products are more than just
benefactors of this trend; they are also facilitators of it. By offering the same basic product worldwide, they help create a
global market.
A company does not have to be the size of these multinational giants to facilitate, and benefit from, the
globalization of markets. In the United States, for example, according to the International Trade Administration, more
than 300,000 small and medium-sized firms with fewer than 500 employees account for 98 percent of the companies that
export. More generally, exports from small and medium-sized companies account for 33 percent of the value of U.S.
exports of manufactured goods.3 Typical of these is B&S Aircraft Alloys, a New York company whose exports account
for 40 percent of its $8 million annual revenues.4 The situation is similar in several other nations. For example, in
Germany, a staggering 98 percent of small and midsize companies have exposure to international markets, via either
exports or international production. Since 2009, China has been the world’s largest exporter, sending more than $2
trillion worth of products and services last year to the rest of the world.
global EDGE INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
RESOURCES
globalEDGE™ has been the world’s go-to site online for global business knowledge since 2001. Google typically ranks the site number
1 for “international business resources” from anywhere in the world you access it. Created by a 30-member team in the International
Business Center in the Broad College of Business at Michigan State University under the supervision of Dr. Tomas Hult and Dr. Tunga
Kiyak, globalEDGE™ is a knowledge resource that connects international business professionals worldwide to a wealth of information,
insights, and learning resources on global business activities.
The site offers the latest and most comprehensive international business and trade content for a wide range of topics. Whether
conducting extensive market research, looking to improve your international knowledge, or simply browsing, you’re sure to find what
you need to sharpen your competitive edge in today’s rapidly changing global marketplace. The easy, convenient, and free
globalEDGE™ website’s tagline is “Your Source for Global Business Knowledge.” Take a look at the site at globaledge.msu.edu. We
will use globalEDGE throughout this text for exercises, information, data, and to keep every facet of the text up-to-date on a daily basis!
Page 7
Despite the global prevalence of Citigroup credit cards, McDonald’s hamburgers, Starbucks coffee, and IKEA
stores, for example, it is important not to push too far the view that national markets are giving way to the global market.
As we shall see in later chapters, significant differences still exist among national markets along many relevant
dimensions, including consumer tastes and preferences, distribution channels, culturally embedded value systems,
business systems, and legal regulations. Uber, for example, the fast-growing ride-for-hire service, is finding it needs to
refine its entry strategy in many foreign cities in order to take differences in the regulatory regime into account. Such
differences frequently require companies to customize marketing strategies, product features, and operating practices to
best match conditions in a particular country.
The most global of markets are not typically markets for consumer products—where national differences in tastes
and preferences can still be important enough to act as a brake on globalization. They are markets for industrial goods
and materials that serve universal needs the world over. These include markets for commodities such as aluminum, oil,
and wheat; for industrial products such as microprocessors, DRAMs (computer memory chips), and commercial jet
aircraft; for computer software; and for financial assets, from U.S. Treasury bills to Eurobonds, and futures on the Nikkei
index or the euro. That being said, it is increasingly evident that many newer high-technology consumer products, such
as Apple’s iPhone, are being successfully sold the same way the world over.
In many global markets, the same firms frequently confront each other as competitors in nation after nation. CocaCola’s rivalry with PepsiCo is a global one, as are the rivalries between Ford and Toyota; Boeing and Airbus; Caterpillar
and Komatsu in earthmoving equipment; General Electric and Rolls-Royce in aero engines; Sony, Nintendo, and
Microsoft in video-game consoles; and Samsung and Apple in smartphones. If a firm moves into a nation not currently
served by its rivals, many of those rivals are sure to follow to prevent their competitor from gaining an advantage.5 As
firms follow each other around the world, they bring with them many of the assets that served them well in other national
markets—their products, operating strategies, marketing strategies, and brand names—creating some homogeneity
across markets. Thus, greater uniformity replaces diversity. In an increasing number of industries, it is no longer
meaningful to talk about “the German market,” “the American market,” “the Brazilian market,” or “the Japanese
market”; for many firms, there is only the global market.
THE GLOBALIZATION OF PRODUCTION
The globalization of production refers to the sourcing of goods and services from locations around the globe to take
advantage of national differences in the cost and quality of factors of production (such as labor, energy, land, and
capital). By doing this, companies hope to lower their overall cost structure or improve the quality or functionality of
their product offering, thereby allowing them to compete more effectively. For example, Boeing has made extensive use
of outsourcing to foreign suppliers. Consider Boeing’s 777 first introduced in 1995: Eight Japanese suppliers make parts
for the fuselage, doors, and wings; a supplier in Singapore makes the doors for the nose landing gear; three suppliers in
Italy manufacture wing flaps; and so on.6 In total, some 30 percent of the 777, by value, is built by foreign companies.
And for its most recent jet airliner, the 787, Boeing has pushed this trend even further; some 65 percent of the total value
of the aircraft is outsourced to foreign companies, 35 percent of which goes to three major Japanese companies.
Part of Boeing’s rationale for outsourcing so much production to foreign suppliers is that these suppliers are the
best in the world at their particular activity. A global web of suppliers yields a better final product, which enhances the
chances of Boeing winning a greater share of total orders for aircraft than its global rival, Airbus. Boeing also outsources
some production to foreign countries to increase the chance it will win significant orders from airlines based in that
country. For a more detailed look at the globalization of production at Boeing, see the accompanying Management
Focus.
Page 8
MANAGEMENT FOCUS
Boeing’s Global Production System
Executives at the Boeing Corporation, America’s largest exporter, say that building a large commercial jet aircraft like the 787
Dreamliner involves bringing together more than a million parts in flying formation. Half a century ago, when the early models of
Boeing’s venerable 737 and 747 jets were rolling off the company’s Seattle-area production lines, foreign suppliers accounted for
only 5 percent of those parts, on average. Boeing was vertically integrated and manufactured many of the major components that
went into the planes. The largest parts produced by outside suppliers were the jet engines, where two of the three suppliers were
American companies. The lone foreign engine manufacturer was the British company Rolls-Royce.
Fast-forward to the modern era, and things look very different. In the case of Boeing’s super-efficient 787 Dreamliner, 50
outside suppliers spread around the world account for 65 percent of the value of the aircraft. Italian firm Alenia Aeronautica makes
the center fuselage and horizontal stabilizer. Kawasaki of Japan makes part of the forward fuselage and the fixed trailing edge of
the wing. French firm Messier-Dowty makes the aircraft’s landing gear. German firm Diehl Luftahrt Elektronik supplies the main
cabin lighting. Sweden’s Saab Aerostructures makes the access doors. Japanese company Jamco makes parts for the lavatories,
flight deck interiors, and galleys. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries of Japan makes the wings. KAA of Korea makes the wing tips. And
so on.
Why the change? One reason is that 80 percent of Boeing’s customers are foreign airlines, and to sell into those nations, it
often helps to be giving business to those nations. The trend started in 1974 when Mitsubishi of Japan was given contracts to
produce inboard wing flaps for the 747. The Japanese reciprocated by placing big orders for Boeing jets. A second rationale was to
disperse component part production to those suppliers who are the best in the world at their particular activity. Over the years, for
example, Mitsubishi has acquired considerable expertise in the manufacture of wings, so it was logical for Boeing to use
Mitsubishi to make the wings for the 787. Similarly, the 787 is the first commercial jet aircraft to be made almost entirely out of
carbon fiber, so Boeing tapped Japan’s Toray Industries, a world-class expert in sturdy but light carbon-fiber composites, to supply
materials for the fuselage. A third reason for the extensive outsourcing on the 787 was that Boeing wanted to unburden itself of
some of the risks and costs associated with developing production facilities for the 787. By outsourcing, it pushed some of those
risks and costs onto suppliers, who had to undertake major investments in capacity to ramp up to produce for the 787.
So what did Boeing retain for itself? Engineering design, marketing and sales, and final assembly are done at its Everett plant
north of Seattle, all activities where Boeing maintains it is the best in the world. Of major component parts, Boeing made only the
tail fin and wing to body fairing (which attaches the wings to the fuselage of the plane). Everything else was outsourced.
As the 787 moved through development, it became clear that Boeing had pushed the outsourcing paradigm too far.
Coordinating a globally dispersed production system this extensive turned out to be very challenging. Parts turned up late, some
parts didn’t “snap together” the way Boeing had envisioned, and several suppliers ran into engineering problems that slowed down
the entire production process. As a consequence, the date for delivery of the first jet was pushed back more than four years, and
Boeing had to take millions of dollars in penalties for late deliveries. The problems at one supplier, Vought Aircraft in North
Carolina, were so severe that Boeing ultimately agreed to acquire the company and bring its production in-house. Vought was coowned by Alenia of Italy and made parts of the main fuselage.
There are now signs that Boeing is rethinking some of its global outsourcing policy. For its next jet, a new version of its
popular wide-bodied 777 jet, the 777X, which will use the same carbon-fiber technology as the 787, Boeing will bring wing
production back in-house. Mitsubishi and Kawasaki of Japan produce much of the wing structure for the 787 and for the original
version of the 777. However, recently Japan’s airlines have been placing large orders with Airbus, breaking with their traditional
allegiance to Boeing. This seems to have given Boeing an opening to bring wing production back in-house. Boeing executives also
note that Boeing has lost much of its expertise in wing production over the last 20 years due to outsourcing, and bringing it back
in-house for new carbon-fiber wings might enable Boeing to regain these important core skills and strengthen the company’s
competitive position.
Sources: M. Ehrenfreund, “The Economic Reality Behind the Boeing Plane Trump Showed Off,” The Washington Post, February 17, 2017; K. Epstein and J. Crown,
“Globalization Bites Boeing,” Bloomberg Businessweek, March 12, 2008; H. Mallick, “Out of Control Outsourcing Ruined Boeing’s Beautiful Dreamliner,” The Star,
February 25, 2013; P. Kavilanz, “Dreamliner: Where in the World Its Parts Come From,” CNN Money, January 18, 2013; S. Dubois, “Boeing’s Dreamliner Mess: Simply
Inevitable?” CNN Money, January 22, 2013; and A. Scott and T. Kelly, “Boeing’s Loss of a $9.5 Billion Deal Could Bring Jobs Back to the U.S.,” Business Insider, October
14, 2013.
Page 9
Early outsourcing efforts were primarily confined to manufacturing activities, such as those undertaken by Boeing
and Apple. Increasingly, however, companies are taking advantage of modern communications technology, particularly
the Internet, to outsource service activities to low-cost producers in other nations. The Internet has allowed hospitals to
outsource some radiology work to India, where images from MRI scans and the like are read at night while U.S.
physicians sleep; the results are ready for them in the morning. Many software companies, including Microsoft, now use
Indian engineers to perform test functions on software designed in the United States. The time difference allows Indian
engineers to run debugging tests on software written in the United States when U.S. engineers sleep, transmitting the
corrected code back to the United States over secure Internet connections so it is ready for U.S. engineers to work on the
following day. Dispersing value-creation activities in this way can compress the time and lower the costs required to
develop new software programs. Other companies, from computer makers to banks, are outsourcing customer service
functions, such as customer call centers, to developing nations where labor is cheaper. In another example from health
care, workers in the Philippines transcribe American medical files (such as audio files from doctors seeking approval
from insurance companies for performing a procedure). Some estimates suggest the outsourcing of many administrative
procedures in health care, such as customer service and claims processing, could reduce health care costs in America by
more than $100 billion.
Did You Know?
Did you know that trade as a percentage of GDP for the U.S. has nearly tripled since 1960?
Visit your instructor’s Connect® course and click on your eBook or SmartBook® to view a short video explanation from
the author.
The economist Robert Reich has argued that as a consequence of the trend exemplified by companies such as
Boeing, Apple, and Microsoft, in many cases it is becoming irrelevant to talk about American products, Japanese
products, German products, or Korean products. Increasingly, according to Reich, the outsourcing of productive
activities to different suppliers results in the creation of products that are global in nature—that is, “global products.”7
But as with the globalization of markets, companies must be careful not to push the globalization of production too far.
As we will see in later chapters, substantial impediments still make it difficult for firms to achieve the optimal dispersion
of their productive activities to locations around the globe. These impediments include formal and informal barriers to
trade between countries, barriers to foreign direct investment, transportation costs, issues associated with economic and
political risk, and the sheer managerial challenge of coordinating a globally dispersed supply chain (an issue for Boeing
with the 787 Dreamliner, as discussed in the Management Focus). For example, government regulations ultimately limit
the ability of hospitals to outsource the process of interpreting MRI scans to developing nations where radiologists are
cheaper.
TEST PREP
Use SmartBook to help retain what you have learned. Access your Instructor’s Connect course to check out SmartBook
or go to learnsmartadvantage.com for help.
Nevertheless, the globalization of markets and production will probably continue. Modern firms are important
actors in this trend, their actions fostering increased globalization. These firms, however, are merely responding in an
efficient manner to changing conditions in their operating environment—as well they should.
The Emergence of Global Institutions
As markets globalize and an increasing proportion of business activity transcends national borders, institutions are
needed to help manage, regulate, and police the global marketplace and to promote the establishment of multinational
treaties to govern the global business system. Over the past 75 years, a number of important global institutions have been
created to help perform these functions, including the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and its
successor, the World Trade Organization; the International Monetary Fund and its sister institution, the World Bank; and
the United Nations. All these institutions were created by voluntary agreement between individual nation-states, and their
functions are enshrined in international treaties.
The World Trade Organization (WTO) (like the GATT before it) is primarily responsible for policing the world
trading system and making sure nation-states adhere to the rules laid down in trade treaties signed by WTO member
states. As of 2019, 164 nations that collectively accounted for 98 percent of world trade were WTO members, Page 10
thereby giving the organization enormous scope and influence. The WTO is also responsible for facilitating the
establishment of additional multinational agreements among WTO member states. Over its entire history, and that of the
GATT before it, the WTO has promoted the lowering of barriers to cross-border trade and investment. In doing so, the
WTO has been the instrument of its member states, which have sought to create a more open global business system
unencumbered by barriers to trade and investment between countries. Without an institution such as the WTO, the
globalization of markets and production is unlikely to have proceeded as far as it has. However, as we shall see in this
chapter and in Chapter 7 when we look closely at the WTO, critics charge that the organization is usurping the national
sovereignty of individual nation-states.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank were both created in 1944 by 44 nations that met
at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire. The IMF was established to maintain order in the international monetary system; the
World Bank was set up to promote economic development. In the more than seven decades since their creation, both
institutions have emerged as significant players in the global economy. The World Bank is the less controversial of the
two sister institutions. It has focused on making low-interest loans to cash-strapped governments in poor nations that
wish to undertake significant infrastructure investments (such as building dams or roads).
The IMF is often seen as the lender of last resort to nation-states whose economies are in turmoil and whose
currencies are losing value against those of other nations. During the past two decades, for example, the IMF has lent
money to the governments of troubled states including Argentina, Indonesia, Mexico, Russia, South Korea, Thailand,
and Turkey. More recently, the IMF took a proactive role in helping countries cope with some of the effects of the 2008–
2009 global financial crisis. IMF loans come with strings attached, however; in return for loans, the IMF requires nationstates to adopt specific economic policies aimed at returning their troubled economies to stability and growth. These
requirements have sparked controversy. Some critics charge that the IMF’s policy recommendations are often
inappropriate; others maintain that by telling national governments what economic policies they must adopt, the IMF,
like the WTO, is usurping the sovereignty of nation-states. We will look at the debate over the role of the IMF in Chapter
11.
The United Nations (UN) was established October 24, 1945, by 51 countries committed to preserving peace
through international cooperation and collective security. Today, nearly every nation in the world belongs to the United
Nations; membership now totals 193 countries. When states become members of the United Nations, they agree to accept
the obligations of the UN Charter, an international treaty that establishes basic principles of international relations.
According to the charter, the UN has four purposes: to maintain international peace and security, to develop friendly
relations among nations, to cooperate in solving international problems and in promoting respect for human rights, and to
be a center for harmonizing the actions of nations. Although the UN is perhaps best known for its peacekeeping role, one
of the organization’s central mandates is the promotion of higher standards of living, full employment, and conditions of
economic and social progress and development—all issues that are central to the creation of a vibrant global economy.
As much as 70 percent of the work of the UN system is devoted to accomplishing this mandate. To do so, the UN works
closely with other international institutions such as the World Bank. Guiding the work is the belief that eradicating
poverty and improving the well-being of people everywhere are necessary steps in creating conditions for lasting world
peace.8
Another institution in the news is the Group of Twenty (G20). Established in 1999, the G20 comprises the finance
ministers and central bank governors of the 19 largest economies in the world, plus representatives from the European
Union and the European Central Bank. Collectively, the G20 represents 90 percent of global GDP and 80 percent of
international global trade. Originally established to formulate a coordinated policy response to financial crises in
developing nations, in 2008 and 2009 it became the forum through which major nations attempted to launch a Page 11
coordinated policy response to the global financial crisis that started in America and then rapidly spread around
the world, ushering in the first serious global economic recession since 1981.
Drivers of Globalization
LO1-2
Recognize the main drivers of globalization.
Two macro factors underlie the trend toward greater globalization.9 The first is the decline in barriers to the free flow of
goods, services, and capital that has occurred in recent decades. The second factor is technological change, particularly
the dramatic developments in communication, information processing, and transportation technologies.
DECLINING TRADE AND INVESTMENT BARRIERS
During the 1920s and 1930s, many of the world’s nation-states erected formidable barriers to international trade and
foreign direct investment. International trade occurs when a firm exports goods or services to consumers in another
country. Foreign direct investment (FDI) occurs when a firm invests resources in business activities outside its home
country. Many of the barriers to international trade took the form of high tariffs on imports of manufactured goods. The
typical aim of such tariffs was to protect domestic industries from foreign competition. One consequence, however, was
“beggar thy neighbor” retaliatory trade policies, with countries progressively raising trade barriers against each other.
Ultimately, this depressed world demand and contributed to the Great Depression of the 1930s.
Having learned from this experience, the advanced industrial nations of the West committed themselves after World
War II to progressively reducing barriers to the free flow of goods, services, and capital among nations.10 This goal was
enshrined in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. Under the umbrella of GATT, eight rounds of negotiations
among member states worked to lower barriers to the free flow of goods and services. The first round of negotiations
went into effect in 1948. The most recent negotiations to be completed, known as the Uruguay Round, were finalized in
December 1993. The Uruguay Round further reduced trade barriers; extended GATT to cover services as well as
manufactured goods; provided enhanced protection for patents, trademarks, and copyrights; and established the World
Trade Organization to police the international trading system.11 Table 1.1 summarizes the impact of GATT agreements
on average tariff rates for manufactured goods among several developed nations. As can be seen, average tariff rates
have fallen significantly since 1950 and now stand at about 2.0–3.0 percent. Comparable tariff rates in 2017 for China
and India were about 8 percent. This represents a sharp decline from 16.2 percent for China in 2000, and 33.6 percent for
India in 2000. It’s also important to note that in addition to the global efforts of the GATT and WTO, trade barriers have
also been reduced by bilateral and regional agreements between two or more nations. For example, the Page 12
European Union has reduced trade barriers between its member states, the North American Free Trade
Agreement reduced trade barriers between the United States, Mexico, and Canada, and a free trade agreement between
the United States and South Korea has reduced trade barriers between those two nations. In the early 1990s, there were
less than 50 such agreements in place. Today, there are around 300 such agreements.
TABLE 1.1 Average Tariff Rates on Manufactured Products as Percentage of Value
Sources: The 1913–1990 data are from “Who Wants to Be a Giant?” The Economist: A Survey of the Multinationals, June 24, 1995, pp. 3–4. The 2018 data are from
the World Development Indicators, World Bank.
Figure 1.1 charts the growth in the value of world merchandised trade and world production between 1960 and
2018 (the most recent year for which data are available). The data are adjusted to take out the effect of inflation and is
indexed at a value of 100 in 1960 to allow for an “apples to apples” comparison. What you can see from the chart is that
between 1960 and 2018 the value of the world economy (adjusted for inflation) increased 9.4 times, while the value of
international trade in merchandised goods increased 22.4 times. This actually underestimates the growth in trade,
because trade in services has also been growing rapidly in recent decades. By 2018, the value of world trade in
merchandised goods was 19.5 trillion, while the value of trade in services was $5.8 trillion.
FIGURE 1.1 Value of world merchandised trade and world production 1960–2019.
Sources: World Bank, 2019; World Trade Organization, 2019; United Nations, 2019.
Not only has trade in goods and services been growing faster than world output for decades, so has the value of
foreign direct investment, in part due to reductions in barriers limiting FDI between countries. According to UN data,
some 80 percent of the more than 1,500 changes made to national laws governing foreign direct investment since 2000
have created a more favorable environment. Partly due to such liberalization, the value of FDI has grown significantly
over the last 30 years. In 1990, about $244 billion in foreign investment was made by enterprises. By 2018, that figure
had increased to $1.3 trillion. As a result of sustained cross-border investment, by 2018 the sales of foreign affiliates of
multinational corporations reached $27 trillion, almost $8 trillion more than the value of international trade in 2018, and
Page 13
these affiliates employed some 76 million people.12
The fact that the volume of world trade has been growing faster than world GDP implies several things.
First, more firms are doing what Boeing does with the 777 and 787: dispersing parts of their production process to
different locations around the globe to drive down production costs and increase product quality. Second, the economies
of the world’s nation-states are becoming ever more intertwined. As trade expands, nations are becoming increasingly
dependent on each other for important goods and services. Third, the world has become significantly wealthier in the last
two decades. The implication is that rising trade is the engine that has helped pull the global economy along.
BCFC/Shutterstock
The globalization of markets and production and the resulting growth of world trade, foreign direct investment, and
imports all imply that firms are finding their home markets under attack from foreign competitors. This is true in China,
where U.S. companies such as Apple, General Motors, and Starbucks are expanding their presence. It is true in the
United States, where Japanese automobile firms have taken market share away from General Motors and Ford over the
past three decades, and it is true in Europe, where the once-dominant Dutch company Philips has seen its market share in
the consumer electronics industry taken by Japan’s Panasonic and Sony and Korea’s Samsung and LG. The growing
integration of the world economy into a single, huge marketplace is increasing the intensity of competition in a range of
manufacturing and service industries.
However, declining barriers to cross-border trade and investment cannot be taken for granted. As we shall see in
subsequent chapters, demands for “protection” from foreign competitors are still often heard in countries around the
world, including the United States. Although a return to the restrictive trade policies of the 1920s and 1930s is unlikely,
it is not clear whether the political majority in the industrialized world favors further reductions in trade barriers. Indeed,
the global financial crisis of 2008–2009 and the associated drop in global output that occurred led to more calls for trade
barriers to protect jobs at home. The election of Donald Trump to the Presidency of the United States in 2017 can be
seen as a continuation of this counter trend, because Trump ran on a platform advocating higher trade barriers to protect
American companies from unfair foreign competition. If trade barriers decline no further, this may slow the rate of
globalization of both markets and production.
ROLE OF TECHNOLOGICAL CHANGE
The lowering of trade barriers made globalization of markets and production a theoretical possibility. Technological
change has made it a tangible reality. Every year that goes by comes with unique and oftentimes major advances in
communication, information processing, and transportation technology, including the explosive emergence of the
“Internet of Things.”
Communications
Perhaps the single most important innovation since World War II has been the development of the microprocessor,
which enabled the explosive growth of high-power, low-cost computing, vastly increasing the amount of information
that can be processed by individuals and firms. The microprocessor also underlies many recent advances in
telecommunications technology. Over the past 30 years, global communications have been revolutionized by Page 14
developments in satellite, optical fiber, wireless technologies, and of course the Internet. These technologies
rely on the microprocessor to encode, transmit, and decode the vast amount of information that flows along these
electronic highways. The cost of microprocessors continues to fall, while their power increases (a phenomenon known as
Moore’s law, which predicts that the power of microprocessor technology doubles and its cost of production falls in half
every 18 months).13
The Internet
The explosive growth of the Internet since 1994, when the first web browser was introduced, has revolutionized
communications and commerce. In 1990, fewer than 1 million users were connected to the Internet. By 1995, the figure
had risen to 50 million. By 2018, the Internet had 4 billion users, or 52 percent of the global population.14It is no surprise
that the Internet has developed into the information backbone of the global economy.
In North America alone, e-commerce retail sales were $517 billion in 2018 (up from almost nothing in 1998), while
global e-commerce sales reached $2.5 trillion.15 Viewed globally, the Internet has emerged as an equalizer. It rolls back
some of the constraints of location, scale, and time zones.16 The Internet makes it much easier for buyers and sellers to
find each other, wherever they may be located and whatever their size. It allows businesses, both small and large, to
expand their global presence at a lower cost than ever before. Just as important, it enables enterprises to coordinate and
control a globally dispersed production system in a way that was not possible 25 years ago.
Transportation Technology
In addition to developments in communications technology, several major innovations in transportation technology have
occurred since the 1950s. In economic terms, the most important are probably the development of commercial jet aircraft
and superfreighters and the introduction of containerization, which simplifies transshipment from one mode of transport
to another. The advent of commercial jet travel, by reducing the time needed to get from one location to another, has
effectively shrunk the globe. In terms of travel time, New York is now “closer” to Tokyo than it was to Philadelphia in
the colonial days.
Containerization has revolutionized the transportation business, significantly lowering the costs of shipping goods
over long distances. Because the international shipping industry is responsible for carrying about 90 percent of the
volume of world trade in goods, this has been an extremely important development.17 Before the advent of
containerization, moving goods from one mode of transport to another was very labor intensive, lengthy, and costly. It
could take days and several hundred longshore workers to unload a ship and reload goods onto trucks and trains. With
the advent of widespread containerization in the 1970s and 1980s, the whole process can now be executed by a handful
of longshore workers in a couple of days. As a result of the efficiency gains associated with containerization,
transportation costs have plummeted, making it much more economical to ship goods around the globe, thereby helping
drive the globalization of markets and production. Between 1920 and 1990, the average ocean freight and port charges
per ton of U.S. export and import cargo fell from $95 to $29 (in 1990 dollars).18 Today, the typical cost of transporting a
20-foot container from Asia to Europe carrying more than 20 tons of cargo is about the same as the economy airfare for a
single passenger on the same journey.
Implications for the Globalization of Production
As transportation costs associated with the globalization of production have declined, dispersal of production to
geographically separate locations has become more economical. As a result of the technological innovations discussed
earlier, the real costs of information processing and communication have fallen dramatically in the past two decades.
These developments make it possible for a firm to create and then manage a globally dispersed production system,
further facilitating the globalization of production. A worldwide communications network has become essential for many
international businesses. For example, Dell uses the Internet to coordinate and control a globally dispersed Page 15
production system to such an extent that it holds only three days’ worth of inventory at its assembly locations.
Dell’s Internet-based system records orders for computer equipment as they are submitted by customers via the
company’s website and then immediately transmits the resulting orders for components to various suppliers around the
world, which have a real-time look at Dell’s order flow and can adjust their production schedules accordingly. Given the
low cost of airfreight, Dell can use air transportation to speed up the delivery of critical components to meet
unanticipated demand shifts without delaying the shipment of final product to consumers. Dell has also used modern
communications technology to outsource its customer service operations to India. When U.S. customers call Dell with a
service inquiry, they are routed to Bangalore in India, where English-speaking service personnel handle the call.
Implications for the Globalization of Markets
In addition to the globalization of production, technological innovations have facilitated the globalization of markets.
Low-cost global communications networks, including those built on top of the Internet, are helping create electronic
global marketplaces. As noted earlier, low-cost transportation has made it more economical to ship products around the
world, thereby helping create global markets. In addition, low-cost jet travel has resulted in the mass movement of
people between countries. This has reduced the cultural distance between countries and is bringing about some
convergence of consumer tastes and preferences. At the same time, global communications networks and global media
are creating a worldwide culture. U.S. television networks such as CNN and HBO are now received in many countries,
Hollywood films are shown the world over, while non-U.S. news networks such as the BBC and Al Jazeera also have a
global footprint. In any society, the media are primary conveyors of culture; as global media develop, we must expect the
evolution of something akin to a global culture. A logical result of this evolution is the emergence of global markets for
consumer products. Clear signs of this are apparent. It is now as easy to find a McDonald’s restaurant in Tokyo as it is in
New York, to buy an iPad in Rio as it is in Berlin, and to buy Gap jeans in Paris as it is in San Francisco.
Despite these trends, we must be careful not to overemphasize their importance. While modern communications
and transportation technologies are ushering in the “global village,” significant national differences remain in culture,
consumer preferences, and business practices. A firm that ignores differences among countries does so at its peril. We
shall stress this point repeatedly throughout this text and elaborate on it in later chapters.
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The Changing Demographics of the Global Economy
LO1-3
Describe the changing nature of the global economy.
Hand in hand with the trend toward globalization has been a fairly dramatic change in the demographics of the global
economy over the past decades. Half a century ago, four facts described the demographics of the global economy. The
first was U.S. dominance in the world economy and world trade picture. The second was U.S. dominance in world
foreign direct investment. Related to this, the third fact was the dominance of large, multinational U.S. firms on the
international business scene. The fourth was that roughly half the globe—the centrally planned economies of the
communist world—was off-limits to Western international businesses. All four of these facts have changed rapidly.
THE CHANGING WORLD OUTPUT AND WORLD TRADE PICTURE
In the early 1960s, the United States was still, by far, the world’s dominant industrial power. In 1960, the United States
accounted for 38.3 percent of world output, measured by gross domestic product (GDP). By 2018, the United States
accounted for 24 percent of world output, with China now at 15.2 percent of world output and the global leader in this
category (see Table 1.2). The United States was not the only developed nation to see its relative standing slip. The same
occurred to Germany, France, Italy, the United Kingdom, and Canada—these are just a few examples. All were nations
that were among the first to industrialize globally.
Page 16
TABLE 1.2 Changing Demographics of World Output and World Exports
Sources: Output data from World Bank database, 2019. Trade data from WTO Statistical Database, 2019.
Of course, the change in the U.S. position was not an absolute decline because the U.S. economy grew significantly
between 1960 and 2018 (the economies of Germany, France, Italy, the United Kingdom, and Canada also grew during
this time). Rather, it was a relative decline, reflecting the faster economic growth of several other economies, particularly
China, and several other nations in Asia. For example, as can be seen from Table 1.2, from 1960 to today, China’s share
of world output increased from a trivial amount to 15.2 percent, making it the world’s second-largest economy in terms
of its share in world output (the U.S. is still the largest economy overall). Other countries that markedly increased their
share of world output included Japan, Thailand, Malaysia, Taiwan, Brazil, and South Korea.
By the end of the 1980s, the U.S.’s position as the world’s leading trading nation was being challenged. Over the
past 30 years, U.S. dominance in export markets has waned as Japan, Germany, and a number of newly industrialized
countries such as South Korea and China have taken a larger share of world exports. During the 1960s, the United States
routinely accounted for 20 percent of world exports of manufactured goods. But as Table 1.2 shows, the U.S. share of
world exports of goods and services has slipped to 8.2 percent, significantly behind that of China.
As emerging economies such as Brazil, Russia, India, and China—coined the BRIC countries—continue to grow, a
further relative decline in the share of world output and world exports accounted for by the United States and other longestablished developed nations seems likely. By itself, this is not bad. The relative decline of the United States reflects the
growing economic development and industrialization of the world economy, as opposed to any absolute decline in the
health of the U.S. economy.
Most forecasts now predict a continued rise in the share of world output accounted for by developing nations such
as China, India, Russia, Indonesia, Thailand, South Korea, Mexico, and Brazil, and a commensurate decline in the share
enjoyed by rich industrialized countries such as the United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, and the United States. Perhaps
more important, if current trends continue, the Chinese economy could be larger than that of the United States within a
decade, while the economy of India could become the third largest by 2030.19
Overall, the World Bank has estimated that today’s developing nations may account for more than 60 percent of
world economic activity by 2030, while today’s rich nations, which currently account for more than 55 percent of world
economic activity, may account for only about 38 percent. Forecasts are not always correct, but these suggest that a shift
in the economic geography of the world is now under way, although the magnitude of that shift is not totally evident. For
international businesses, the implications of this changing economic geography are clear: Many of tomorrow’s economic
opportunities may be found in the developing nations of the world, and many of tomorrow’s most capable competitors
will probably also emerge from these regions. A case in point has been the dramatic expansion of India’s software sector,
which is profiled in the accompanying Country Focus.
Page 17
COUNTRY FOCUS
India’s Software Sector
Some 30 years ago, a number of small software enterprises were established in Bangalore, India. Typical of these enterprises was
Infosys Technologies, which was started by seven Indian entrepreneurs with about $1,000 among them. Infosys now has annual
revenues of $10.2 billion and some 200,000 employees, but it is just one of more than 100 software companies clustered around
Bangalore, which has become the epicenter of India’s fast-growing information technology sector. From a standing start in the
mid-1980s, this sector is now generating export sales of more than $100 billion.
The growth of the Indian software sector has been based on four factors. First, the country has an abundant supply of
engineering talent. Every year, Indian universities graduate some 400,000 engineers. Second, labor costs in the Indian software
sector have historically been low. As recently as 2008, the cost to hire an Indian graduate was roughly 12 percent of the cost of
hiring an American graduate (however, this gap is narrowing fast with pay in the sector now only 30–40 percent less than in the
United States). Third, many Indians are fluent in English, which makes coordination between Western firms and India easier.
Fourth, due to time differences, Indians can work while Americans sleep, creating unique time efficiencies and an around-theclock work environment.
Initially, Indian software enterprises focused on the low end of the software industry, supplying basic software development
and testing services to Western firms. But as the industry has grown in size and sophistication, Indian firms have moved up the
market. Today, the leading Indian companies compete directly with the likes of IBM and EDS for large software development
projects, business process outsourcing contracts, and information technology consulting services. Over the past 15 years, these
markets have boomed, with Indian enterprises capturing a large slice of the pie. One response of Western firms to this emerging
competitive threat has been to invest in India to garner the same kind of economic advantages that Indian firms enjoy. IBM, for
example, has invested $2 billion in its Indian operations and now has 150,000 employees located there, more than in any other
country. Microsoft, too, has made major investments in India, including a research and development (R&D) center in Hyderabad
that employs 4,000 people and was located there specifically to tap into talented Indian engineers who did not want to move to the
United States.
Sources: “Ameerpet, India’s Unofficial IT Training Hub,” The Economist, March 30, 2017; “America’s Pain, India’s Gain: Outsourcing,” The Economist, January 11, 2003, p.
59; “The World Is Our Oyster,” The Economist, October 7, 2006, pp. 9–10; “IBM and Globalization: Hungry Tiger, Dancing Elephant,” The Economist, April 7, 2007, pp.
67–69; P. Mishra, “New Billing Model May Hit India’s Software Exports,” Live Mint, February 14, 2013; and “India’s Outsourcing Business: On the Turn,” The Economist,
January 19, 2013.
THE CHANGING FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENT PICTURE
Reflecting the dominance of the United States in the global economy, U.S. firms accounted for 66.3 percent of
worldwide foreign direct investment flows in the 1960s. British firms were second, accounting for 10.5 percent, while
Japanese firms were a distant eighth, with only 2 percent. The dominance of U.S. firms was so great that books were
written about the economic threat posed to Europe by U.S. corporations.20 Several European governments, most notably
France, talked of limiting inward investment by U.S. firms.
However, as the barriers to the free flow of goods, services, and capital fell, and as other countries increased their
shares of world output, non-U.S. firms increasingly began to invest across national borders. The motivation for much of
this foreign direct investment by non-U.S. firms was the desire to disperse production activities to optimal locations and
to build a direct presence in major foreign markets. Thus, beginning in the 1970s, European and Japanese firms began to
shift labor-intensive manufacturing operations from their home markets to developing nations where labor costs were
lower. In addition, many Japanese firms invested in North America and Europe—often as a hedge against unfavorable
currency movements and the possible imposition of trade barriers. For example, Toyota, the Japanese automobile
company, rapidly increased its investment in automobile production facilities in the United States and Europe during the
late 1980s and 1990s. Toyota executives believed that an increasingly strong Japanese yen would price Japanese Page 18
automobile exports out of foreign markets; therefore, production in the most important foreign markets, as
opposed to exports from Japan, made sense. Toyota also undertook these investments to head off growing political
pressures in the United States and Europe to restrict Japanese automobile exports into those markets.
One consequence of these developments is illustrated in Figure 1.2, which shows the change in the outward stock
of foreign direct investment as a percentage of GDP for a selection of countries and the world as a whole. (The outward
stock of foreign direct investment (FDI) refers to the total cumulative value of foreign investments by firms domiciled
in a nation outside of that nation's borders.) Figure 1.2 illustrates a striking increase in the outward stock of FDI over
time. For example, in 1995 the outward stock of FDI held by U.S. firms was equivalent to 13 percent of U.S. GDP; by
2018, that figure was 35 percent. For the world as a whole, the outward stock of FDI increased from 12 percent to 35
percent over the same time period. The clear implication is that, increasingly, firms based in a nation depend for their
revenues and profits on investments and productive activities in other nations. We live in an increasingly interconnected
world.
FIGURE 1.2 FDI outward stock as a percentage of GDP.
Sources: OECD data 2019, World Development Indicators 2019, UNCTAD data base, 2019.
Figure 1.3 illustrates two other important trends—the sustained growth in cross-border flows of foreign direct
investment that has occurred since 1990, and the increasing importance of developing nations as the destination of
foreign direct investment. Throughout the 1990s, the amount of investment directed at both developed and developing
nations increased dramatically, a trend that reflects the increasing internationalization of business corporations. Page 19
A surge in foreign direct investment from 1998 to 2000 was followed by a slump from 2001 to 2004, associated
with a slowdown in global economic activity after the collapse of the financial bubble of the late 1990s and 2000. The
growth of foreign direct investment resumed at “normal” levels for that time in 2005 and continued upward through
2007, when it hit record levels, only to slow again in 2008 and 2009 as the global financial crisis took hold. However,
throughout this period, the growth of foreign direct investment into developing nations remained robust. Among
developing nations, the largest recipient has been China, which received about $250 billion in inflows last year. As we
shall see later in this text, the sustained flow of foreign investment into developing nations is an important stimulus for
economic growth in those countries, which bodes well for the future of countries such as China, Mexico, and Brazil—all
leading beneficiaries of this trend.
FIGURE 1.3 FDI inflows (in millions of dollars).
Source: United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, World Investment Report 2019. (Data for 2019–2020 are forecast.)
THE CHANGING NATURE OF THE MULTINATIONAL ENTERPRISE
A multinational enterprise (MNE) is any business that has productive activities in two or more countries. In the last 50
years, two notable trends in the demographics of the multinational enterprise have been (1) the rise of non-U.S.
multinationals and (2) the growth of mini-multinationals.
Non-U.S. Multinationals
In the 1960s, global business activity was dominated by large U.S. multinational corporations. With U.S. firms
accounting for about two-thirds of foreign direct investment during the 1960s, one would expect most multinationals to
be U.S. enterprises. In addition, British, Dutch, and French enterprises figured prominently on lists of the world's largest
multinational enterprises. By 2003, when Forbes magazine started to compile its annual ranking of the world's top 2,000
multinational enterprises, 776 of the 2,000 firms, or 38.8 percent, were U.S. enterprises. The second-largest source
country was Japan with 16.6 percent of the largest multinationals. The United Kingdom accounted for another 6.6
percent of the world’s largest multinationals at the time. As shown in Figure 1.4, by 2019 the U.S. share had fallen to
28.8 percent, or 575 firms, and the Japanese share had declined to 11.1 percent, while Chinese enterprises had emerged
to comprise 309 of the total, or 15.5 percent. There has also been a notable increase in multinationals from Taiwan, India,
and South Korea.
FIGURE 1.4 National share of the largest 2,000 multinational corporations in 2019.
Source: Forbes Global 2000 in 2019.
These shifts in representation of powerful multinational corporations and their home bases can be expected to
continue. Specifically, we expect that even more firms from developing nations will emerge as important competitors in
global markets, further shifting the axis of the world economy away from North America and Western Europe Page 20
and challenging the long dominance of companies from the so-called developed world. One such rising
competitor, the Dalian Wanda Group, is profiled in the accompanying Management Focus.
MANAGEMENT FOCUS
The Dalian Wanda Group
The Dalian Wanda Group is perhaps the world’s largest real estate company, but is little known outside China. Established in
1988, the Dalian Wanda Group is the largest owner of five-star hotels in the world. The company’s real estate portfolio includes
133 Wanda shopping malls and 84 hotels. It also has extensive holdings in the film industry, in sports companies, tourism, and
children’s entertainment. Dalian Wanda’s stated ambition is to become a world-class multinational, a goal it may already have
achieved.
In 2012, Dalian Wanda significantly expanded its international footprint when it acquired the U.S. cinema chain AMC
Entertainment Holdings for $2.6 billion. At the time, the acquisition was the largest ever of a U.S. company by a Chinese
enterprise, surpassing the $1.8 billion takeover of IBM’s PC business by Lenovo in 2005. AMC is the second-largest cinema
operator in North America, where moviegoers spend more than $10 billion a year on tickets. After the acquisition was completed,
the headquarters of AMC remained in Kansas City. Dalian, however, indicated it would inject capital into AMC to upgrade its
theaters to show more IMAX and 3D movies.
In 2015, Wanda followed its AMC acquisition with the purchase of Hoyts Group, an Australian cinema operator with more
than 150 cinemas. By combining AMC movie theaters with Hoyts and its already extensive movie properties in China, Dalian
Wanda has become the largest cinema operator in the world, with more than 500 cinemas. This puts Wanda in a strong position
when negotiating distribution terms with movie studios.
Wanda is also expanding its international real estate operations. In 2014, it announced it won a bid for a prime plot of land in
Beverly Hills, California. Wanda plans to invest $1.2 billion to construct a mixed-use development. The company also has a
sizable project in Chicago, where it is investing $900 million to build the third-tallest building in the city. In addition, Wanda has
real estate projects in Spain, Australia, and London.
Today, the Wanda Group is already among the top 400 companies in the world, with some 130,000 employees, $90 billion in
assets, and about $45 billion in revenue.
Sources: Keith Weir, “China’s Dalian Wanda to Acquire Australia’s Hoyts for $365.7 Million,” Reuters, June 24, 2015; Zachary Mider, “China’s Wanda to Buy AMC
Cinema Chain for $2.6 Billion,” Bloomberg Businessweek, May 21, 2012; and Wanda Group Corporate, www.wanda-group.com. Corporate Profile, Official Website of
Wanda Group, retrieved March 2019.
The Rise of Mini-Multinationals
Another trend in international business has been the growth of small and medium-sized multinationals (minimultinationals).21 When people think of international businesses, they tend to think of firms such as ExxonMobil,
General Motors, Ford, Panasonic, Procter & Gamble, Sony, and Unilever—large, complex multinational corporations
with operations that span the globe. Although most international trade and investment is still conducted by large firms,
many medium-sized and small businesses are becoming increasingly involved in international trade and investment. The
rise of the Internet is lowering the barriers that small firms face in building international sales.
Consider Lubricating Systems Inc. of Kent, Washington. Lubricating Systems, which manufactures lubricating
fluids for machine tools, employs 25 people, and generates sales of $6.5 million. It’s hardly a large, complex
multinational, yet more than $2 million of the company’s sales are generated by exports to a score of countries, including
Japan, Israel, and the United Arab Emirates. Lubricating Systems has also set up a joint venture with a German company
to serve the European market.22
Consider also Lixi Inc., a small U.S. manufacturer of industrial X-ray equipment: More than half of Lixi’s $24.4
million in revenues comes from exports to Japan.23 Or take G. W. Barth, a manufacturer of cocoa-bean roasting Page 21
machinery based in Ludwigsburg, Germany. Employing just 65 people, this small company has captured 70
percent of the global market for cocoa-bean roasting machines.24 International business is conducted not just by large
firms but also by medium-sized and small enterprises.
THE CHANGING WORLD ORDER
In 1989 and 1991, a series of democratic revolutions swept the communist world. For reasons that are explored in more
detail in Chapter 3, in country after country throughout eastern Europe and eventually in the Soviet Union itself,
Communist Party governments collapsed. The Soviet Union receded into history, replaced by 15 independent republics.
Czechoslovakia divided itself into two states, while Yugoslavia dissolved into a bloody civil war among its five
successor states.
Since then, many of the former communist nations of Europe and Asia have seemed to share a commitment to
democratic politics and free market economics. For half a century, these countries were essentially closed to Western
international businesses. Now, they present a host of export and investment opportunities. Three decades later, the
economies of many of the former communist states are still relatively undeveloped, however, and their continued
commitment to democracy and market-based economic systems cannot be taken for granted. Disturbing signs of growing
unrest and totalitarian tendencies are seen in several eastern European and central Asian states, including Russia, which
has shifted back toward greater state involvement in economic activity and authoritarian government.25 Thus, the risks
involved in doing business in such countries are high, but so may be the returns.
In addition to these changes, quieter revolutions have been occurring in China, other countries in Southeast Asia,
and Latin America. Their implications for international businesses may be just as profound as the collapse of
communism in eastern Europe and Russia some time ago. China suppressed its pro-democracy movement in the bloody
Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989. On the other hand, China continues to move progressively toward greater free
market reforms. If what is occurring in China continues for two more decades, China may evolve from a third-world
business giant into an industrial superpower even more rapidly than Japan did. If China’s GDP per capita grows by an
average of 6 to 7 percent, which is slower than the 8 to 10 percent growth rate achieved during the past decade, then by
2030 this nation of 1.4 billion people could boast an average GDP per capita of about $23,000, roughly the same as that
of Chile or Poland today.
The potential consequences for international business are enormous. On the one hand, China represents a huge and
largely untapped market. Reflecting this, between 1983 and today, annual foreign direct investment in China increased
from less than $2 billion to $250 billion annually. On the other hand, China’s new firms are proving to be very capable
competitors, and they could take global market share away from Western and Japanese enterprises (see the Management
Focus on the Dalian Wanda Group). Thus, the changes in China are creating both opportunities and threats for
established international businesses.
As for Latin America, both democracy and free market reforms have been evident there, too. For decades, most
Latin American countries were ruled by dictators, many of whom seemed to view Western international businesses as
instruments of imperialist domination. Accordingly, they restricted direct investment by foreign firms. In addition, the
poorly managed economies of Latin America were characterized by low growth, high debt, and hyperinflation—all of
which discouraged investment by international businesses. In the past two decades, much of this has changed.
Throughout much of Latin America, debt and inflation are down, governments have sold state-owned enterprises to
private investors, foreign investment is welcomed, and the region’s economies have expanded. Brazil, Mexico, and Chile
have led the way. These changes have increased the attractiveness of Latin America, both as a market for exports and as
a site for foreign direct investment. At the same time, given the long history of economic mismanagement in Latin
America, there is no guarantee that these favorable trends will continue. Indeed, Bolivia, Ecuador, and most Page 22
notably Venezuela have seen shifts back toward greater state involvement in industry in the past few years, and
foreign investment is now less welcome than it was during the 1990s. In these nations, the government has seized control
of oil and gas fields from foreign investors and has limited the rights of foreign energy companies to extract oil and gas
from their nations. Thus, as in the case of eastern Europe, substantial opportunities are accompanied by substantial risks.
GLOBAL ECONOMY OF THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
The past quarter century has seen rapid changes in the global economy. Not withstanding recent developments such as
the higher tariffs introduced by the Trump Administration in the United States, barriers to the free flow of goods,
services, and capital have been coming down. As their economies advance, more nations are joining the ranks of the
developed world. A generation ago, South Korea and Taiwan were viewed as second-tier developing nations. Now they
boast large economies, and firms based there are major players in many global industries, from shipbuilding and steel to
electronics and chemicals. The move toward a global economy has been further strengthened by the widespread adoption
of liberal economic policies by countries that had firmly opposed them for two generations or more. In short, current
trends indicate the world is moving toward an economic system that is more favorable for international business.
But it is always hazardous to use established trends to predict the future. The world may be moving toward a more
global economic system, but globalization is not inevitable. Countries may pull back from the recent commitment to
liberal economic ideology if their experiences do not match their expectations. There are clear signs, for example, of a
retreat from liberal economic ideology in Russia. If Russia’s hesitation were to become more permanent and widespread,
the liberal vision of a more prosperous global economy based on free market principles might not occur as quickly as
many hope. Clearly, this would be a tougher world for international businesses.
Also, greater globalization brings with it risks of its own. This was starkly demonstrated in 1997 and 1998, when a
financial crisis in Thailand spread first to other East Asian nations and then to Russia and Brazil. Ultimately, the crisis
threatened to plunge the economies of the developed world, including the United States, into a recession. We explore the
causes and consequences of this and other similar global financial crises in Chapter 11. Even from a purely economic
perspective, globalization is not all good. The opportunities for doing business in a global economy may be significantly
enhanced, but as we saw in 1997–1998, the risks associated with global financial contagion are also greater. Indeed,
during 2008–2009, a crisis that started in the financial sector of America, where banks had been too liberal in their
lending policies to homeowners, swept around the world and plunged the global economy into its deepest recession since
the early 1980s, illustrating once more that in an interconnected world a severe crisis in one region can affect the entire
globe. Still, as explained later in this text, firms can exploit the opportunities associated with globalization while
reducing the risks through appropriate hedging strategies. These hedging strategies may also become more and more
important as the world balances globalization efforts with a potential increase in nationalistic tendencies by some
countries (e.g., recently in the United States and United Kingdom).
TEST PREP
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The Globalization Debate
LO1-4
Explain the main arguments in the debate over the impact of globalization.
Is the shift toward a more integrated and interdependent global economy a good thing? Many influential economists,
politicians, and business leaders seem to think so.26 They argue that falling barriers to international trade and investment
are the twin engines driving the global economy toward greater prosperity. They say increased international trade and
cross-border investment will result in lower prices for goods and services. They believe that globalization Page 23
stimulates economic growth, raises the incomes of consumers, and helps create jobs in all countries that
participate in the global trading system. The arguments of those who support globalization are covered in detail in
Chapters 6, 7, and 8. As we shall see, there are good theoretical reasons for believing that declining barriers to
international trade and investment do stimulate economic growth, create jobs, and raise income levels. Moreover, as
described in Chapters 6, 7, and 8, empirical evidence lends support to the predictions of this theory. However, despite the
existence of a compelling body of theory and evidence, globalization has its critics.27 Some of these critics are vocal and
active, taking to the streets to demonstrate their opposition to globalization. Here, we look at the nature of protests
against globalization and briefly review the main themes of the debate concerning the merits of globalization. In later
chapters, we elaborate on many of these points.
ANTIGLOBALIZATION PROTESTS
Popular demonstrations against globalization date back to December 1999, when more than 40,000 protesters blocked
the streets of Seattle in an attempt to shut down a World Trade Organization meeting being held in the city. The
demonstrators were protesting against a wide range of issues, including job losses in industries under attack from foreign
competitors, downward pressure on the wage rates of unskilled workers, environmental degradation, and the cultural
imperialism of global media and multinational enterprises, which was seen as being dominated by what some protesters
called the “culturally impoverished” interests and values of the United States. All of these ills, the demonstrators
claimed, could be laid at the feet of globalization. The World Trade Organization was meeting to try to launch a new
round of talks to cut barriers to cross-border trade and investment. As such, it was seen as a promoter of globalization
and a target for the protesters. The protests turned violent, transforming the normally placid streets of Seattle into a
running battle between “anarchists” and Seattle’s bemused and poorly prepared police department. Pictures of brickthrowing protesters and armored police wielding their batons were duly recorded by the global media, which then
circulated the images around the world. Meanwhile, the WTO meeting failed to reach an agreement, and although the
protests outside the meeting halls had little to do with that failure, the impression took hold that the demonstrators had
succeeded in derailing the meetings.
Emboldened by the experience in Seattle, antiglobalization protesters have made a habit of turning up at major
meetings of global institutions. Smaller-scale protests have periodically occurred in several countries, such as France,
where antiglobalization activists destroyed a McDonald’s restaurant in 1999 to protest the impoverishment of French
culture by American imperialism (see the accompanying Country Focus for details). While violent protests may give the
antiglobalization effort a bad name, it is clear from the scale of the demonstrations that support for the cause goes beyond
a core of anarchists. Large segments of the population in many countries believe that globalization has detrimental
effects on living standards, wage rates, and the environment. Indeed, the strong support for President Donald Trump in
the 2016 U.S. election was primarily based on his repeated assertions that trade deals had exported U.S. jobs overseas
and created unemployment and low wages in America.
Both theory and evidence suggest that many of these fears are exaggerated. Many protests against globalization are
tapping into a general sense of loss at the passing of a world in which barriers of time and distance, and significant
differences in economic institutions, political institutions, and the level of development of different nations produced a
world rich in the diversity of human cultures. However, while the rich citizens of the developed world may have the
luxury of mourning the fact that they can now see McDonald’s restaurants and Starbucks coffeehouses on their vacations
to exotic locations such as Thailand, fewer complaints are heard from the citizens of those countries, who welcome the
higher living standards that progress brings.
Page 24
COUNTRY FOCUS
Protesting Globalization in France
It all started one night in August 1999, but it might as well have been today. Back in 1999, 10 men under the leadership of local
sheep farmer and rural activist José Bové crept into the town of Millau in central France and vandalized a McDonald’s restaurant
under construction, causing an estimated $150,000 in damage. These were no ordinary vandals, however, at least according to their
supporters, for the “symbolic dismantling” of the McDonald’s outlet had noble aims, or so it was claimed. The attack was initially
presented as a protest against unfair American trade policies. The European Union (EU) had banned imports of hormone-treated
beef from the United States, primarily because of fears that it might lead to health problems (although EU scientists had concluded
there was no evidence of this). After a careful review, the World Trade Organization stated the EU ban was not allowed under
trading rules that the EU and United States were party to and that the EU would have to lift it or face retaliation. The EU refused to
comply, so the U.S. government imposed a 100 percent tariff on imports of certain EU products, including French staples such as
foie gras, mustard, and Roquefort cheese. On farms near Millau, Bové and others raised sheep whose milk was used to make
Roquefort. They felt incensed by the American tariff and decided to vent their frustrations on McDonald’s.
Bové and his compatriots were arrested and charged. About the same time in the Languedoc region of France, California
winemaker Robert Mondavi had reached an agreement with the mayor and council of the village of Aniane and regional
authorities to turn 125 acres of wooded hillside belonging to the village into a vineyard. Mondavi planned to invest $7 million in
the project and hoped to produce top-quality wine that would sell in Europe and the United States for $60 a bottle. However, local
environmentalists objected to the plan, which they claimed would destroy the area’s unique ecological heritage. José Bové,
basking in sudden fame, offered his support to the opponents, and the protests started. In May 2001, the socialist mayor who had
approved the project was defeated in local elections in which the Mondavi project had become the major issue. He was replaced by
a communist, Manuel Diaz, who denounced the project as a capitalist plot designed to enrich wealthy U.S. shareholders at the cost
of his villagers and the environment. Following Diaz’s victory, Mondavi announced he would pull out of the project. A
spokesperson noted, “It’s a huge waste, but there are clearly personal and political interests at play here that go way beyond us.”*
So, are the French opposed to foreign investment? The experience of McDonald’s and Mondavi seems to suggest so, as does
the associated news coverage, but look closer and a different reality seems to emerge. Today, McDonald’s has more than 1,200
restaurants in France. McDonald’s employs 69,000 workers in the country. France is the most profitable market for McDonald’s
after the United States. In short, 20 years after the protests, France is a major success story for McDonald’s. Moreover, France has
long been one of the most favored locations for inward foreign direct investment, receiving more than $700 billion of foreign
investment between 2000 and 2017, which makes it one of the top destinations for foreign investment in Europe. American
companies have always accounted for a significant percentage of this investment. French enterprises have also been significant
foreign investors; some 1,100 French multinationals have about $1.1 trillion of assets in other nations. For all of the populist
opposition to globalization, French corporations and consumers appear to be embracing it.
*Henley, Jon. “Grapes of Wrath Scares Off US Firm.” Guardian News & Media Limited, May 18, 2001. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/may/18/jonhenley.
Sources: “Behind the Bluster,” The Economist, May 26, 2001; “The French Farmers’ Anti-Global Hero,” The Economist, July 8, 2000; C. Trueheart, “France’s Golden Arch
Enemy?” Toronto Star, July 1, 2000; United Nations, World Investment Report, 2014 (New York & Geneva: United Nations, 2011); and Rob Wile, “The True Story of How
McDonald’s Conquered France,” Business Insider, August 22, 2014.
GLOBALIZATION, JOBS, AND INCOME
One concern frequently voiced by globalization opponents is that falling barriers to international trade destroy
manufacturing jobs in wealthy advanced economies such as the United States and Western Europe. Critics argue that
falling trade barriers allow firms to move manufacturing activities to countries where wage rates are much lower.28
Indeed, due to the entry of China, India, and countries from eastern Europe into the global trading system, along with
global population growth, the pool of global labor has increased more than fivefold between 1990 and today. Page 25
Other things being equal, we might conclude that this enormous expansion in the global labor force, when
coupled with expanding international trade, would have depressed wages in developed nations.
This fear is often supported by anecdotes. For example, D. L. Bartlett and J. B. Steele, two journalists for the
Philadelphia Inquirer who gained notoriety for their attacks on free trade, cite the case of Harwood Industries, a U.S.
clothing manufacturer that closed its U.S. operations, where it paid workers $9 per hour, and shifted manufacturing to
Honduras, where textile workers received 48 cents per hour.29 Because of moves such as this, argue Bartlett and Steele,
the wage rates of poorer Americans have fallen significantly over the past quarter of a century.
In the past few years, the same fears have been applied to services, which have increasingly been outsourced to
nations with lower labor costs. The popular feeling is that when corporations such as Dell, IBM, or Citigroup outsource
service activities to lower-cost foreign suppliers—as all three have done—they are “exporting jobs” to low-wage nations
and contributing to higher unemployment and lower living standards in their home nations (in this case, the United
States). Some U.S. lawmakers have responded by calling for legal barriers to job outsourcing.
Supporters of globalization reply that critics of these trends miss the essential point about free trade agreements—
the benefits outweigh the costs.30 They argue that free trade will result in countries specializing in the production of
those goods and services that they can produce most efficiently, while importing goods and services that they cannot
produce as efficiently. When a country embraces free trade, there is always some dislocation—lost textile jobs at
Harwood Industries or lost call-center jobs at Dell—but the whole economy is better off as a result. According to this
view, it makes little sense for the United States to produce textiles at home when they can be produced at a lower cost in
Honduras or China. Importing textiles from China leads to lower prices for clothes in the United States, which enables
consumers to spend more of their money on other items. At the same time, the increased income generated in China from
textile exports increases income levels in that country, which helps the Chinese purchase more products produced in the
United States, such as pharmaceuticals from Amgen, Boeing jets, microprocessors made by Intel, Microsoft software,
and Cisco routers.
The same argument can be made to support the outsourcing of services to low-wage countries. By outsourcing its
customer service call centers to India, Dell can reduce its cost structure and thereby its prices for computers. U.S.
consumers benefit from this development. As prices for computers fall, Americans can spend more of their money on
other goods and services. Moreover, the increase in income levels in India allows Indians to purchase more U.S. goods
and services, which helps create jobs in the United States. In this manner, supporters of globalization argue that free
trade benefits all countries that adhere to a free-trade regime.
If the critics of globalization are correct, three things must be shown. First, the share of national income received by
labor, as opposed to the share received by the owners of capital (e.g., stockholders and bondholders), should have
declined in advanced nations as a result of downward pressure on wage rates. Second, even though labor’s share of the
economic pie may have declined, this does not mean lower living standards if the size of the total pie has increased
sufficiently to offset the decline in labor’s share—in other words, if economic growth and rising living standards in
advanced economies have offset declines in labor’s share (this is the position argued by supporters of globalization).
Third, the decline in labor’s share of national income must be due to moving production to low-wage countries, as
opposed to improvement in production technology and productivity.
Several studies shed light on these issues.31 First, the data suggest that over the past two decades, the share of labor
in national income has declined. However, detailed analysis suggests the share of national income enjoyed by skilled
labor has actually increased, suggesting that the fall in labor’s share has been due to a fall in the share taken by unskilled
labor. A study by the IMF suggested the earnings gap between workers in skilled and unskilled sectors has widened by
25 percent over the past two decades.32 Another study that focused on U.S. data found that exposure to Page 26
competition from imports led to a decline in real wages for workers who performed unskilled tasks, while
having no discernible impact on wages in skilled occupations. The same study found that skilled and unskilled workers
in sectors where exports grew saw an increase in their real wages.33 These figures suggest that unskilled labor in sectors
that have been exposed to more efficient foreign competition probably has seen its share of national income decline over
the past three decades.
However, this does not mean that the living standards of unskilled workers in developed nations have declined. It is
possible that economic growth in developed nations has offset the fall in the share of national income enjoyed by
unskilled workers, raising their living standards. Evidence suggests that real labor compensation has expanded in most
developed nations since the 1980s, including the United States. Several studies by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), whose members include the 34 richest economies in the world, conclude that while
the gap between the poorest and richest segments of society in OECD countries has widened, in most countries real
income levels have increased for all, including the poorest segment. In one study, the OECD found that real household
income (adjusted for inflation) increased by 1.7 percent annually among its member states. The real income level of the
poorest 10 percent of the population increased at 1.4 percent on average, while that of the richest 10 percent increased by
2 percent annually (i.e., while everyone got richer, the gap between the most affluent and the poorest sectors of society
widened). The differential in growth rates was more extreme in the United States than most other countries. The study
found that the real income of the poorest 10 percent of the population grew by just 0.5 percent a year in the United
States, while that of the richest 10 percent grew by 1.9 percent annually.34
As noted earlier, globalization critics argue that the decline in unskilled wage rates is due to the migration of lowwage manufacturing jobs offshore and a corresponding reduction in demand for unskilled workers. However, supporters
of globalization see a more complex picture. They maintain that the weak growth rate in real wage rates for unskilled
workers owes far more to a technology-induced shift within advanced economies away from jobs where the only
qualification was a willingness to turn up for work every day and toward jobs that require significant education and
skills. They point out that many advanced economies report a shortage of highly skilled workers and an excess supply of
unskilled workers. Thus, growing income inequality is a result of the wages for skilled workers being bid up by the labor
market and the wages for unskilled workers being discounted. In fact, evidence suggests that technological change has
had a bigger impact than globalization on the declining share of national income enjoyed by labor.35 This suggests that a
solution to the problem of slow real income growth among the unskilled is to be found not in limiting free trade and
globalization but in increasing society’s investment in education to reduce the supply of unskilled workers.36
Finally, it is worth noting that the wage gap between developing and developed nations is closing as developing
nations experience rapid economic growth. For example, one estimate suggests that wages in China will approach
Western levels in two decades.37 To the extent that this is the case, any migration of unskilled jobs to low-wage
countries is a temporary phenomenon representing a structural adjustment on the way to a more tightly integrated global
economy.
GLOBALIZATION, LABOR POLICIES, AND THE ENVIRONMENT
A second source of concern is that free trade encourages firms from advanced nations to move manufacturing facilities
to less developed countries that lack adequate regulations to protect labor and the environment from abuse by the
unscrupulous.38 Globalization critics often argue that adhering to labor and environmental regulations significantly
increases the costs of manufacturing enterprises and puts them at a competitive disadvantage in the global marketplace
vis-à-vis firms based in developing nations that do not have to comply with such regulations. Firms deal with Page 27
this cost disadvantage, the theory goes, by moving their production facilities to nations that do not have such
burdensome regulations or that fail to enforce the regulations they have.
If this were the case, we might expect free trade to lead to an increase in pollution and result in firms from
advanced nations exploiting the labor of less developed nations.39 This argument was made by those who opposed the
1994 formation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) among Canada, Mexico, and the United States.
They painted a picture of U.S. manufacturing firms moving to Mexico so that they would be free to pollute the
environment, employ child labor, and ignore workplace safety and health issues, all in the name of higher profits.40
Supporters of free trade and greater globalization express doubts about this scenario. They argue that tougher
environmental regulations and stricter labor standards go hand in hand with economic progress.41 In general, as countries
get richer, they enact tougher environmental and labor regulations.42 Because free trade enables developing countries to
increase their economic growth rates and become richer, this should lead to tougher environmental and labor laws. In this
view, the critics of free trade have got it backward: Free trade does not lead to more pollution and labor exploitation; it
leads to less. By creating wealth and incentives for enterprises to produce technological innovations, the free market
system and free trade could make it easier for the world to cope with pollution and population growth. Indeed, while
pollution levels are rising in the world’s poorer countries, they have been falling in developed nations. In the United
States, for example, the concentration of carbon monoxide and sulfur dioxide pollutants in the atmosphere has decreased
by 60 percent since 1978, while lead concentrations have decreased by 98 percent—and these reductions have occurred
against a background of sustained economic expansion.43
A number of econometric studies have found consistent evidence of a hump-shaped relationship between income
levels and pollution levels (see Figure 1.5).44 As an economy grows and income levels rise, initially pollution levels also
rise. However, past some point, rising income levels lead to demands for greater environmental protection, and pollution
levels then fall. A seminal study by Grossman and Krueger found that the turning point generally occurred before per
capita income levels reached $8,000.45
While the hump-shaped relationship depicted in Figure 1.5 seems to hold across a wide range of pollutants—from
sulfur dioxide to lead concentrations and water quality—carbon dioxide emissions are an important exception, rising
steadily with higher-income levels. Given that carbon dioxide is a heat-trapping gas and given that there is good evidence
that increased atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations are a cause of global warming, this should be of Page 28
serious concern. The solution to the problem, however, is probably not to roll back the trade liberalization
efforts that have fostered economic growth and globalization, and raised living standards worldwide, but to get the
nations of the world to agree to policies designed to limit carbon emissions. In the view of most economists, the most
effective way to do this would be to put a price on carbon-intensive energy generation through a carbon tax. To ensure
that this tax does not harm economic growth, economists argue that it should be revenue neutral, with increases in carbon
taxes offset by reductions in income or consumption taxes.46
FIGURE 1.5 Income levels and environmental pollution.
Source: C. W. L. Hill and G. T. M. Hult, Global Business Today (New York: McGraw-Hill Education, 2018).
Although UN-sponsored talks have had reduction in carbon dioxide emissions as a central aim since the 1992 Earth
Summit in Rio de Janeiro, until recently there has been little success in moving toward the ambitious goals for reducing
carbon emissions laid down in the Earth Summit and subsequent talks in Kyoto, Japan, in 1997, Copenhagen in 2009,
and Paris in 2015, for example. In part, this is because the largest emitters of carbon dioxide, the United States and
China, failed to reach agreements about how to proceed. China, a country whose carbon emissions are increasing at a
rapid rate, has until recently shown little appetite for tighter pollution controls. As for the United States, political
divisions in Congress and a culture of denial have made it difficult for the country to even acknowledge, never mind
move forward with, legislation designed to tackle climate change. In late 2014, the United States and China did strike a
deal under which both countries agreed to potentially significant reductions in carbon emissions. This was followed by a
broadly based multilateral agreement reached in Paris in 2015 that committed the nations of the world to ambitious goals
for reducing CO2 emissions and limiting future increases in global temperatures. However, President Donald Trump
pulled the United States out of the Paris agreement in 2017. Trump, who disputes the theory and evidence that rising
CO2 levels are causing climate change, argued that the Paris Accord disadvantaged the United States to the exclusive
benefits of other countries. Without the participation of the United States, it is difficult to see the world making
significant progress on this issue.
Many supporters of free trade point out that it is possible to tie free trade agreements to the implementation of
tougher environmental and labor laws in less developed countries. NAFTA, for example, was passed only after side
agreements had been negotiated that committed Mexico to tougher enforcement of environmental protection regulations.
Thus, supporters of free trade argue that factories based in Mexico are now cleaner than they would have been without
the passage of NAFTA.47
They also argue that business firms are not the amoral organizations that critics suggest. While there may be some
rotten apples, most business enterprises are staffed by managers who are committed to behaving in an ethical manner and
would be unlikely to move production offshore just so they could pump more pollution into the atmosphere or exploit
labor. Furthermore, the relationship between pollution, labor exploitation, and production costs may not be that
suggested by critics. In general, they argue, a well-treated labor force is productive, and it is productivity rather than base
wage rates that often has the greatest influence on costs. Advocates of free trade dispute the vision of greedy managers
who shift production to low-wage countries to exploit their labor force.
GLOBALIZATION AND NATIONAL SOVEREIGNTY
Another concern voiced by critics of globalization is that today’s increasingly interdependent global economy shifts
economic power away from national governments and toward supranational organizations such as the World Trade
Organization, the European Union, and the United Nations. As perceived by critics, unelected bureaucrats now impose
policies on the democratically elected governments of nation-states, thereby undermining the sovereignty of those states
Page 29
and limiting the nation’s ability to control its own destiny.48
The World Trade Organization is a favorite target of those who attack the headlong rush toward a global
economy. As noted earlier, the WTO was founded in 1995 to police the world trading system established by the General
Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. The WTO arbitrates trade disputes among its 164 member states. The arbitration panel
can issue a ruling instructing a member state to change trade policies that violate GATT regulations. If the violator
refuses to comply with the ruling, the WTO allows other states to impose appropriate trade sanctions on the transgressor.
As a result, according to one prominent critic, U.S. environmentalist, consumer rights advocate, and sometime
presidential candidate Ralph Nader:
Under the new system, many decisions that affect billions of people are no longer made by local or national governments but
instead, if challenged by any WTO member nation, would be deferred to a group of unelected bureaucrats sitting behind closed
doors in Geneva (which is where the headquarters of the WTO are located). The bureaucrats can decide whether or not people in
California can prevent the destruction of the last virgin forests or determine if carcinogenic pesticides can be banned from their
foods; or whether European countries have the right to ban dangerous biotech hormones in meat. . . . At risk is the very basis of
democracy and accountable decision making.49
In cont rast t oNader, manyeconomi st s and pol itici ans m
ai ntai n t hat the power of supranat i onal organi zations such
as the WTO is limited to what nation-states collectively agree to grant. They argue that bodies such as the United Nations
and the WTO exist to serve the collective interests of member states, not to subvert those interests. Supporters of
supranational organizations point out that the power of these bodies rests largely on their ability to persuade member
states to follow a certain action. If these bodies fail to serve the collective interests of member states, those states will
withdraw their support and the supranational organization will quickly collapse. In this view, real power still resides with
individual nation-states, not supranational organizations.
GLOBALIZATION AND THE WORLD’S POOR
Critics of globalization argue that despite the supposed benefits associated with free trade and investment, over the past
100 years or so the gap between the rich and poor nations of the world has gotten wider. In 1870, the average income per
capita in the world’s 17 richest nations was 2.4 times that of all other countries. In 1990, the same group was 4.5 times as
rich as the rest. In 2019, the 34 member states of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
(OECD), which includes most of the world’s rich economies, had an average gross national income (GNI) per person of
more than $40,000, whereas the world’s 40 least developed countries had a GNI of under $1,000 per capita—implying
that income per capita in the world’s 34 richest nations was 40 times that in the world’s 40 poorest.50
While recent history has shown that some of the world’s poorer nations are capable of rapid periods of economic
growth—witness the transformation that has occurred in some Southeast Asian nations such as South Korea, Thailand,
and Malaysia—there appear to be strong forces for stagnation among the world’s poorest nations. A quarter of the
countries with a GDP per capita of less than $1,000 in 1960 had growth rates of less than zero, and a third had growth
rates of less than 0.05 percent.51 Critics argue that if globalization is such a positive development, this divergence
between the rich and poor should not have occurred.
Although the reasons for economic stagnation vary, several factors stand out, none of which has anything to do
with free trade or globalization.52 Many of the world’s poorest countries have suffered from totalitarian governments,
economic policies that destroyed wealth rather than facilitated its creation, endemic corruption, scant protection for
property rights, and prolonged civil war. A combination of such factors helps explain why countries such as Afghanistan,
Cuba, Haiti, Iraq, Libya, Nigeria, Sudan, Syria, North Korea, and Zimbabwe have failed to improve the economic lot of
their citizens during recent decades. A complicating factor is the rapidly expanding populations in many of Page 30
these countries. Without a major change in government, population growth may exacerbate their problems.
Promoters of free trade argue that the best way for these countries to improve their lot is to lower their barriers to free
trade and investment and to implement economic policies based on free market economics.53
Many of the world’s poorer nations are being held back by large debt burdens. Of particular concern are the 40 or
so “highly indebted poorer countries” (HIPCs), which are home to some 700 million people. Among these countries, the
average government debt burden has been as high as 85 percent of the value of the economy, as measured by gross
domestic product, and the annual costs of serving government debt have consumed 15 percent of the country’s export
earnings.54 Servicing such a heavy debt load leaves the governments of these countries with little left to invest in
important public infrastructure projects, such as education, health care, roads, and power. The result is the HIPCs are
trapped in a cycle of poverty and debt that inhibits economic development. Free trade alone, some argue, is a necessary
but not sufficient prerequisite to help these countries bootstrap themselves out of poverty. Instead, large-scale debt relief
is needed for the world’s poorest nations to give them the opportunity to restructure their economies and start the long
climb toward prosperity. Supporters of debt relief also argue that new democratic governments in poor nations should
not be forced to honor debts that were incurred and mismanaged long ago by their corrupt and dictatorial predecessors.
In the late 1990s, a debt relief movement began to gain ground among the political establishment in the world’s
richer nations.55 Fueled by high-profile endorsements from Irish rock star Bono (who has been a tireless and
increasingly effective advocate for debt relief), the Dalai Lama, and influential Harvard economist Jeffrey Sachs, the
debt relief movement was instrumental in persuading the United States to enact legislation in 2000 that provided $435
million in debt relief for HIPCs. More important perhaps, the United States also backed an IMF plan to sell some of its
gold reserves and use the proceeds to help with debt relief. The IMF and World Bank have now picked up the banner and
have embarked on a systematic debt relief program.
For such programs to have a lasting effect, however, debt relief must be matched by wise investment in public
projects that boost economic growth (such as education) and by the adoption of economic policies that facilitate
investment and trade.
Economists argue that the richest nations of the world can help by reducing barriers to the importation of products
from the world’s poorest nations, particularly tariffs on imports of agricultural products and textiles. High-tariff barriers
and other impediments to trade make it difficult for poor countries to export more of their agricultural production. The
World Trade Organization has estimated that if the developed nations of the world eradicated subsidies to their
agricultural producers and removed tariff barriers to trade in agriculture, this would raise global economic welfare by
$128 billion, with $30 billion of that going to poor nations, many of which are highly indebted. The faster growth
associated with expanded trade in agriculture could significantly reduce the number of people living in poverty according
to the WTO.56
Despite the large gap between rich and poor nations, there is evidence of substantial progress. According to data
from the World Bank, the percentage of the world’s population living in poverty has declined substantially over the last
three decades (see Figure 1.6). In 1981, 42.2 percent of the world’s population lived in extreme poverty, classified as
living on less than $1.90 a day, and 66.4 percent lived on less than $5.50 per day. By 2015, these figures were 10 percent
and 46 percent, respectively. Put differently, between 1981 and 2015 the number of people living in extreme poverty fell
from 1.9 billion to 736 million, despite the fact that the world’s population increased by around 2.5 billion over the same
period. The world is getting better, and many economists would argue that globalization, and the opportunities it offers
to the world’s poorer nations to improve their lot, has much to do with this. On the other hand, by 2015 there were still
3.4 billion people living on less than $5.50 a day, which suggests there is still a considerable way to go.
Page 31
TEST PREP
Use SmartBook to help retain what you have learned. Access your Instructor’s Connect course to check out SmartBook
or go to learnsmartadvantage.com for help.
FIGURE 1.6 Percentage of the world’s population living in poverty during 1981–2015.
Source: World Bank Data Base on Poverty and Equity, World Development Indicators, 2019.
Managing in the Global Marketplace
LO1-5
Understand how the process of globalization is creating opportunities and challenges for management practice.
Much of this text is concerned with the challenges of managing an international business. An international business is
any firm that engages in international trade or investment. A firm does not have to become a multinational enterprise,
investing directly in operations in other countries, to engage in international business, although multinational enterprises
are international businesses. All a firm has to do is export or import products from other countries. As the world shifts
toward a truly integrated global economy, more firms—both large and small—are becoming international businesses.
What does this shift toward a global economy mean for managers within an international business?
As their organizations increasingly engage in cross-border trade and investment, managers need to recognize that
the task of managing an international business differs from that of managing a purely domestic business in many ways.
At the most fundamental level, the differences arise from the simple fact that countries are different. Countries differ in
their cultures, political systems, economic systems, legal systems, and levels of economic development. Despite all the
talk about the emerging global village, and despite the trend toward globalization of markets and production, as we shall
see in this text, many of these differences are very profound and enduring.
Differences among countries require that an international business vary its practices country by country. Marketing
a product in Brazil may require a different approach from marketing the product in Germany; managing U.S. workers
might require different skills from managing Japanese workers; maintaining close relations with a particular level of
government may be very important in Mexico and irrelevant in Great Britain; a business strategy pursued in Canada
might not work in South Korea; and so on. Managers in an international business must not only be sensitive to these
differences but also adopt the appropriate policies and strategies for coping with them. Much of this text is Page 32
devoted to explaining the sources of these differences and the methods for successfully coping with them.
A further way in which international business differs from domestic business is the greater complexity of managing
an international business. In addition to the problems that arise from the differences between countries, a manager in an
international business is confronted with a range of other issues that the manager in a domestic business never confronts.
The managers of an international business must decide where in the world to site production activities to minimize costs
and maximize value added. They must decide whether it is ethical to adhere to the lower labor and environmental
standards found in many less-developed nations. Then, they must decide how best to coordinate and control globally
dispersed production activities (which, as we shall see later in the text, is not a trivial problem). The managers in an
international business also must decide which foreign markets to enter and which to avoid. They must choose the
appropriate mode for entering a particular foreign country. Is it best to export its product to the foreign country? Should
the firm allow a local company to produce its product under license in that country? Should the firm enter into a joint
venture with a local firm to produce its product in that country? Or should the firm set up a wholly owned subsidiary to
serve the market in that country? As we shall see, the choice of entry mode is critical because it has major implications
for the long-term health of the firm.
Conducting business transactions across national borders requires understanding the rules governing the
international trading and investment system. Managers in an international business must also deal with government
restrictions on international trade and investment. They must find ways to work within the limits imposed by specific
governmental interventions. As this text explains, even though many governments are nominally committed to free trade,
they often intervene to regulate cross-border trade and investment. Managers within international businesses must
develop strategies and policies for dealing with such interventions.
Cross-border transactions also require that money be converted from the firm’s home currency into a foreign
currency and vice versa. Because currency exchange rates vary in response to changing economic conditions, managers
in an international business must develop policies for dealing with exchange rate movements. A firm that adopts the
wrong policy can lose large amounts of money, whereas one that adopts the right policy can increase the profitability of
its international transactions.
In sum, managing an international business is different from managing a purely domestic business for at least four
reasons: (1) countries are different, (2) the range of problems confronted by a manager in an international business is
wider and the problems themselves more complex than those confronted by a manager in a domestic business, (3) an
international business must find ways to work within the limits imposed by government intervention in the international
trade and investment system, and (4) international transactions involve converting money into different currencies.
In this text, we examine all these issues in depth, paying close attention to the different strategies and policies that
managers pursue to deal with the various challenges created when a firm becomes an international business. Chapters 2,
3, and 4 explore how countries differ from each other with regard to their political, economic, legal, and cultural
institutions. Chapter 5 takes a detailed look at the ethical issues, corporate social responsibility, and sustainability issues
that arise in international business. Chapters 6, 7, 8, and 9 look at the global trade and investment environment within
which international businesses must operate. Chapters 10, 11, and 12 review the global monetary system. These chapters
focus on the nature of the foreign exchange market and the emerging global monetary system. Chapters 13 and 14
explore the strategy, organization, and market entry choices of an international business. Chapters 15 through 20 look at
the management of various functional operations within an international business, including exporting, importing,
countertrade, production, supply chain management, marketing, R&D, finance, and human resources. By the time you
complete this text, you should have a good grasp of the issues that managers working in international business have to
grapple with on a daily basis, and you should be familiar with the range of strategies and operating policies available to
compete more effectively in today’s rapidly emerging global economy.
Page 33
TEST PREP
Use SmartBook to help retain what you have learned. Access your Instructor’s Connect course to check out SmartBook
or go to learnsmartadvantage.com for help.
Key Terms
globalization, p. 6
globalization of markets, p. 6
globalization of production, p. 7
factors of production, p. 7
General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), p. 9
World Trade Organization (WTO), p. 9
International Monetary Fund (IMF), p. 10
World Bank, p. 10
United Nations (UN), p. 10
Group of Twenty (G20), p. 10
international trade, p. 11
foreign direct investment (FDI), p. 11
Moore’s law, p. 14
outward stock of foreign direct investment (FDI), p. 18
multinational enterprise (MNE), p. 19
international business, p. 31
SUMMARY
This chapter has shown how the world economy is becoming more global and has reviewed the main drivers of
globalization, arguing that they seem to be thrusting nation-states toward a more tightly integrated global economy. It
looked at how the nature of international business is changing in response to the changing global economy, discussed
concerns raised by rapid globalization, and reviewed implications of rapid globalization for individual managers. The
chapter made the following points:
1. Over the past three decades, we have witnessed the globalization of markets and production.
2. The globalization of markets implies that national markets are merging into one huge marketplace. However,
it is important not to push this view too far.
3. The globalization of production implies that firms are basing individual productive activities at the optimal
world locations for their particular activities. As a consequence, it is increasingly irrelevant to talk about
American products, Japanese products, or German products, because these are being replaced by “global”
products. Or, in some cases, they are simply replaced by products made by specific companies, such as Apple,
Sony, or Microsoft.
4. Two factors seem to underlie the trend toward globalization: declining trade barriers and changes in
communication, information, and transportation technologies.
5. Since the end of World War II, barriers to the free flow of goods, services, and capital have been lowered
significantly. More than anything else, this has facilitated the trend toward the globalization of production and
has enabled firms to view the world as a single market.
6. As a consequence of the globalization of production and markets, in the last decade, world trade has grown
faster than world output, foreign direct investment has surged, imports have penetrated more deeply into the
world’s industrial nations, and competitive pressures have increased in industry after industry.
7. The development of the microprocessor and related developments in communication and information
processing technology have helped firms link their worldwide operations into sophisticated information
networks. Jet air travel, by shrinking travel time, has also helped link the worldwide operations of
international businesses. These changes have enabled firms to achieve tight coordination of their worldwide
operations and to view the world as a single market.
8. In the 1960s, the U.S. economy was dominant in the world, U.S. firms accounted for most of the foreign direct
investment in the world economy, U.S. firms dominated the list of large multinationals, and roughly half the
world—the centrally planned economies of the communist world—was closed to Western businesses.
9. By the 2020s, the U.S. share of world output will have been cut in half, with major shares now being
accounted for by European and Southeast Asian economies. The U.S. share of worldwide foreign direct
investment will have fallen by about two-thirds. U.S. multinationals will be facing competition from a large
number of multinationals. In addition, the emergence of mini-multinationals was noted.
10. One of the most dramatic developments of the past 30 years has been the collapse of communism in eastern
Europe, which has created enormous opportunities for international businesses. In addition, the move toward
free market economies in China and Latin America is creating opportunities (and threats) for Western Page 34
international businesses.
11. The benefits and costs of the emerging global economy are being hotly debated among businesspeople,
economists, and politicians. The debate focuses on the impact of globalization on jobs, wages, the
environment, working conditions, national sovereignty, and extreme poverty in the world’s poorest nations.
12. Managing an international business is different from managing a domestic business for at least four reasons:
(1) countries are different, (2) the range of problems confronted by a manager in an international business is
wider and the problems themselves are more complex than those confronted by a manager in a domestic
business, (3) managers in an international business must find ways to work within the limits imposed by
governments’ intervention in the international trade and investment system, and (4) international transactions
involve converting money into different currencies.
Critical Thinking and Discussion Questions
1. Describe the shifts in the world economy over the past 30 years. What are the implications of these shifts for
international businesses based in the United Kingdom? North America? Hong Kong?
2. “The study of international business is fine if you are going to work in a large multinational enterprise, but it
has no relevance for individuals who are going to work in small firms.” Evaluate this statement.
3. How have changes in technology contributed to the globalization of markets and production? Would the
globalization of production and markets have been possible without these technological changes?
4. “Ultimately, the study of international business is no different from the study of domestic business. Thus,
there is no point in having a separate course on international business.” Evaluate this statement.
5. How does the Internet affect international business activity and the globalization of the world economy?
6. If current trends continue, China may be the world’s largest economy by 2035. Discuss the possible
implications of such a development for
a. the world trading system.
b. the world monetary system.
c. the business strategy of today’s European and U.S.-based global corporations.
d. global commodity prices.
7. Reread the Management Focus “Boeing’s Global Production System” and answer the following questions:
a. What are t h e benef its t o Boei ng of outsour
based in other countries?
b. What are the potential costs and risks to Boeing of outsourcing?
c. In addition to foreign subcontractors and Boeing, who else benefits from Boeing’s decision to outsource
component part manufacturing assembly to other nations? Who are the potential losers?
d. If Boeing’s management decided to keep all production in America, what do you think the effect would
be o n the company, i t s employees, and the communi ties that dependon it ?
e. On balance, do you think that the kind of outsourcing undertaken by Boeing is a good thing or a bad thing
for the American economy? Explain your reasoning.
global EDGE research
task globaledge.msu.edu
Use the globalEDGE™ website (globaledge.msu.edu) to complete the following exercises:
1. As the drivers of globalization continue to pressure both the globalization of markets and the globalization of
production, we continue to see the impact of greater globalization on worldwide trade patterns. HSBC, a large
global bank, analyzes these pressures and trends to identify opportunities across markets and sectors through
its trade forecasts. Visit the HSBC Global Connections site and use the trade forecast tool to identify which
export routes are forecast to see the greatest growth over the next 15 to 20 years. What patterns do you see?
What types of countries dominate these routes?
Page 35
2. You are working for a company that is considering investing in a foreign country. Investing in
countries with different traditions is an important element of your company’s long-term strategic goals.
Management has requested a report regarding the attractiveness of alternative countries based on the potential
return of FDI. Accordingly, the ranking of the top 25 countries in terms of FDI attractiveness is a crucial
ingredient for your report. A colleague mentioned a potentially useful tool called the Foreign Direct
Investment (FDI) Confidence Index. The FDI Confidence Index is a regular survey of global executives
conducted by A.T. Kearney. Find this index and provide additional information regarding how the index is
constructed.
CLOSING CASE
General Motors in China
In November 2018, General Motors, America’s largest home-grown automobile manufacturer, announced it would close
three assembly plants in the United States, laying off about 5,600 employees. All of these plants made passenger cars
that had fallen out of favor with U.S. consumers, who preferred to purchase sports utility vehicles and pick-up trucks.
Jvdwolf/123RF
President Donald Trump, who has made the revival of traditional U.S. manufacturing industries one of his major
goals, quickly tweeted that he was “Very disappointed with General Motors and their CEO, Mary Barra, for closing
plants in Ohio, Michigan and Maryland. Nothing being closed in Mexico & China. The U.S. saved General Motors, and
this is the THANKS we get! We are now looking at cutting all @GM subsidies including for electric cars. General
Motors made a big China bet years ago when they built plants there (and in Mexico)—don’t think that bet is going to pay
off. I am here to protect American Workers!”* In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Trump offered the
observation that “I think GM ought to stop making cars in China and make them here.”
*Donald John Trump. Twitter, November 27, 2018. https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump.
Trump was right that GM had made a major bet on China. GM has been operating in China since 1997 when it
established a joint venture with SAIC Motor, a Chinese state-owned automotive design and manufacturing company.
GM has a 50 percent ownership stake in the joint venture, which is known as SAIC-GM. In 2018, GM and its joint
venture partner built and sold some 3.64 million vehicles in China, up from 1.2 million in 2011 and 0.4 million in 2006.
By comparison, in 2018 GM sold 2.95 million vehicles in the United States. China is now the world’s largest automobile
market. It’s been the largest market for GM since 2012. Despite the size of the Chinese market, there is still lots of room
for growth. There are around 173 vehicles per capita in China, compared to 833 per capita in the United States.
GM sells models in China under the Chevrolet, Buick, GMC, Cadillac, Holden, Baojun, Wuling, and Jiefang
brands. GM exports almost nothing from the U.S. to China, although it does export one China-built model, the Buick
Envision, to the American market. GM says it cannot build the Buick Envision economically in the U.S., because the
Chinese market accounts for 80 percent of the model’s global sales.
Like many automakers, GM believes it needs factories close to its customers in order to reduce supply chain costs
and design vehicles that best suit local market demands. GM also wants to be in China because the country is leading the
shift away from gasoline engines toward battery-powered electric motors. Sales of electric vehicles in China are four
times higher than in the United States and growing faster. To foster the growth in electric vehicle production, China has
been providing generous subsidies to local producers (including SAIC-GM) and consumers. GM has pledged to invest
heavily in electric vehicles and plans to launch 20 electric models in China by 2023.
In addition, there have long been tariffs on imports of motor vehicles into China. Local production avoids these. In
2018, China increased tariffs on imports of American made cars into China from 15 percent to 40 percent in Page 36
retaliation for wide-ranging tariffs Trump had placed on imports of Chinese products into the United States.
These tariff increases had little impact on GM, which produced all of its Chinese sales locally. However, they did impact
another American manufacturer, Tesla, which had been doing what Trump wanted GM to do: export production from the
United States to China. Tesla’s Chinese sales fell in half in the months after the tariffs were raised. In response, Tesla
slashed prices in China and stated it would accelerate plans to build production facilities there, opening a factory in 2021
or 2022.
Sources: Trefor Moss, “Why GM Is Likely to Keep Producing in China Despite Trump’s Pleas,” The Wall Street Journal, November 27, 2018; Anjani Trivedi, “GM Needs China more
than It Fears Trump,” Bloomberg, November 27, 2018; Wolf Richter, "GM’s Business Is Booming in China," Business Insider, December 6, 2018; Jack Perkowski, “What China’s Shifting
Subsidies Could Mean for Its Electric Vehicle Industry," Forbes, July 13, 2018.
Case Discussion Questions
1. What are the long-term prospects for the Chinese market?
2. Does it make sense for GM to produce automobiles for the Chinese market in China? Why?
3. What do you think would happen if GM tried to serve the Chinese market by exporting production from the
United States?
4. Why do you think GM went into partnership with a state-owned company to produce automobiles in China? What
are the possible benefits of such a venture? What might be the downside?
5. What does this case teach you about benefits and costs of import tariffs?
Design elements: Modern textured halftone: ©VIPRESIONA/Shutterstock; globalEDGE icon: ©globalEDGE; All others: ©McGraw-Hill Education
Endnotes
1. Thomas L. Friedman, The World Is Flat (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005).
2. T. Levitt, “The Globalization of Markets,” Harvard Business Review, May–June 1983, pp. 92–102.
3. U.S. Department of Commerce, Internal Trade Administration, “Profile of U.S. Exporting and Importing
Companies, 2012–2013,” April 2015.
4. C. M. Draffen, “Going Global: Export Market Proves Profitable for Region’s Small Businesses,” Newsday,
March 19, 2001, p. C18.
5. See F. T. Knickerbocker, Oligopolistic Reaction and Multinational Enterprise (Boston: Harvard Business School
Press, 1973); R. E. Caves, “Japanese Investment in the U.S.: Lessons for the Economic Analysis of Foreign
Investment,” The World Economy 16 (1993), pp. 279–300.
6. I. Metthee, “Playing a Large Part,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, April 9, 1994, p. 13.
7. R. B. Reich, The Work of Nations (New York: Knopf, 1991).
8. United Nations, “About the United Nations,” www.un.org/en/about-un.
9. J. A. Frankel, “Globalization of the Economy,” National Bureau of Economic Research, working paper no. 7858,
2000.
10. J. Bhagwati, Protectionism (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1989).
11. F. Williams, “Trade Round Like This May Never Be Seen Again,” Financial Times, April 15, 1994, p. 8.
12. Data are from UNCTAD, World Investment Report 2019, United Nations, 2019.
13. Moore’s law is named after Intel founder Gordon Moore.
14. Data compiled from various sources and listed at www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm.
15. From www.census.gov/mrts/www/ecomm.html. See also S. Fiegerman, “Ecommerce Is Now a Trillion Dollar
Industry,” Mashable Business, February 5, 2013.
16. For a counterpoint, see “Geography and the Net: Putting It in Its Place,” The Economist, August 11, 2001, pp. 18–
20.
17. International Chamber of Shipping, Key Facts, www.ics-shipping.org/shipping-facts/key-facts.
18. Frankel, “Globalization of the Economy.”
19. Raj Kumar Ray, “India’s Economy to Become 3rd Largest, Surpass Japan, Germany by 2030,” Hindustan Times,
April 28, 2017.
20. N. Hood and J. Young, The Economics of the Multinational Enterprise (New York: Longman, 1973).
21. S. Chetty, “Explosive International Growth and Problems of Success Among Small and Medium Sized Firms,”
International Small Business Journal, February 2003, pp. 5–28.
22. R. A. Mosbacher, “Opening Up Export Doors for Smaller Firms,” Seattle Times, July 24, 1991, p. A7.
23. “Small Companies Learn How to Sell to the Japanese,” Seattle Times, March 19, 1992.
Page 37
24. W. J. Holstein, “Why Johann Can Export, but Johnny Can’t,” BusinessWeek, November 3, 1991.
Archived at www.businessweek.com/stories/1991-11-03/why-johann-can-export-but-johnny-cant.
25. N. Buckley and A. Ostrovsky, “Back to Business—How Putin’s Allies Are Turning Russia into a Corporate
State,” Financial Times, June 19, 2006, p. 11.
26. J. E. Stiglitz, Globalization and Its Discontents (New York: W. W. Norton, 2003); J. Bhagwati, In Defense of
Globalization (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004); Friedman, The World Is Flat.
27. See, for example, Ravi Batra, The Myth of Free Trade (New York: Touchstone Books, 1993); William Greider,
One World, Ready or Not: The Manic Logic of Global Capitalism (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997); D.
Radrik, Has Globalization Gone Too Far? (Washington, DC: Institution for International Economics, 1997).
28. E. Goldsmith, “The Winners and the Losers,” in The Case Against the Global Economy, ed. J. Mander and E.
Goldsmith (San Francisco: Sierra Club, 1996); Lou Dobbs, Exporting America (New York: Time Warner Books,
2004).
29. D. L. Bartlett and J. B. Steele, “America: Who Stole the Dream,” Philadelphia Inquirer, September 9, 1996.
30. For example, see Paul Krugman, Pop Internationalism (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1996).
31. For example, see B. Milanovic and L. Squire, “Does Tariff Liberalization Increase Wage Inequality?” National
Bureau of Economic Research, working paper no. 11046, January 2005; B. Milanovic, “Can We Discern the
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.
46.
47.
48.
49.
50.
51.
52.
53.
54.
55.
56.
Effect of Globalization on Income Distribution?” World Bank Economic Review 19 (2005), pp. 21–44. Also see
the summary in Thomas Piketty, “The Globalization of Labor,” in Capital in the Twenty First Century
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014).
See Piketty, “The Globalization of Labor.”
A. Ebenstein, A. Harrison, M. McMillam, and S. Phillips, “Estimating the Impact of Trade and Offshoring on
American Workers Using the Current Population Survey,” Review of Economics and Statistics 67 (October 2014),
pp. 581–95.
M. Forster and M. Pearson, “Income Distribution and Poverty in the OECD Area,” OECD Economic Studies 34
(2002); OECD, “Growing Income Inequality in OECD Countries,” OECD Forum, May 2, 2011.
See Piketty, “The Globalization of Labor.”
See Krugman, Pop Internationalism; D. Belman and T. M. Lee, “International Trade and the Performance of U.S.
Labor Markets,” in U.S. Trade Policy and Global Growth, ed. R. A. Blecker (New York: Economic Policy
Institute, 1996).
R. B. Freeman, “Labor Market Imbalances: Shortages, Surpluses, or What?” Volume 51, Conference Series,
Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, 2006.
E. Goldsmith, “Global Trade and the Environment,” in The Case Against the Global Economy, eds. J. Mander and
E. Goldsmith (San Francisco: Sierra Club, 1996).
P. Choate, Jobs at Risk: Vulnerable U.S. Industries and Jobs Under NAFTA (Washington, DC: Manufacturing
Policy Project, 1993).
P. Choate, Jobs at Risk: Vulnerable U.S. Industries and Jobs Under NAFTA (Washington, DC: Manufacturing
Policy Project, 1993).
B. Lomborg, The Skeptical Environmentalist (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2001).
H. Nordstrom and S. Vaughan, Trade and the Environment, World Trade Organization Special Studies No. 4
(Geneva: WTO, 1999).
Figures are from “Freedom’s Journey: A Survey of the 20th Century. Our Durable Planet,” The Economist,
September 11, 1999, p. 30.
For an exhaustive review of the empirical literature, see B. R. Copeland and M. Scott Taylor, “Trade, Growth and
the Environment,” Journal of Economic Literature, March 2004, pp. 7–77.
G. M. Grossman and A. B. Krueger, “Economic Growth and the Environment,” Quarterly Journal of Economics
110 (1995), pp. 353–78.
For an economic perspective on climate change, see William Nordhouse, The Climate Casino (Princeton, NJ:
Yale University Press, 2013).
Krugman, Pop Internationalism.
R. Kuttner, “Managed Trade and Economic Sovereignty,” in U.S. Trade Policy and Global Growth, ed. R. A.
Blecker (New York: Economic Policy Institute, 1996).
Nader, Ralph, and Lori Wallach. “GATT, NAFTA, and the subversion of the Democratic Process.” U.S. Trade
Policy and Global Growth, ed. The Case Against the Global Economy. Sierra Club Books.
Lant Pritchett, “Divergence, Big Time,” Journal of Economic Perspectives 11, no. 3 (Summer 1997), pp. 3–18.
The data are from the World Bank’s World Development Indicators, 2015.
Lant Pritchett, “Divergence, Big Time,” Journal of Economic Perspectives 11, no. 3 (Summer 1997), pp. 3–18.
The data are from the World Bank’s World Development Indicators, 2015.
W. Easterly, “How Did Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Become Heavily Indebted?” World Development,
October 2002, pp. 1677–96; J. Sachs, The End of Poverty (New York: Penguin Books, 2006).
See D. Ben-David, H. Nordstrom, and L. A. Winters, Trade, Income Disparity and Poverty. World Trade
Organization Special Studies No. 5 (Geneva: WTO, 1999).
William Easterly, “Debt Relief,” Foreign Policy, Novembe r –Decem
ber 2001 , pp. 20–26.
Jeffrey Sachs, “Sachs on Development: Helping the World’s Poorest,” The Economist, August 14, 1999, pp. 17–
20.
World Trade Organization, Annual Report 2003 (Geneva: WTO, 2004).
part two National Differences
Page 38
National Differences in Political, Economic, and Legal
Systems
2
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
After reading this chapter, you will be able to:
LO2-1
Understand how the political systems of countries differ.
LO2-2
Understand how the economic systems of countries differ.
LO2-3
Understand how the legal systems of countries differ.
LO2-4
Explain the implications for management practice of national differences in political economy.
Bartosz Hadyniak/E+/Getty Images
Page 39
Kenya: An African Lion
OPENING CASE
The East African nation of Kenya has emerged as one of the economic growth stories of sub-Saharan Africa. Real Gross Domestic
Product grew at 4.9 percent in 2017 and 5.9 percent in 2018. Growth for 2019 and 2020 is expected to be in the 6 percent range.
Kenya is East Africa’s economic, financial, and transportation hub. Major industries include agriculture, mining, manufacturing,
tourism, communications, and financial services.
When Kenya won its independence from Britain in 1963, the country embraced what was known at the time as “African
Socialism.” The principles of African Socialism included social development guided by a large public sector, emphasis on the African
identity and what it means to be African, and the avoidance of social classes within society. Practically, this meant significant public
investment in infrastructure by state-owned companies, coupled with the encouragement of smallholder agricultural production. The
country also embraced a policy of import substitution, applying high tariffs to foreign manufactured goods in an attempt to foster
domestic production.
While these policies initially produced some gains, particularly in the agricultural sector, by the early 1990s the economy was
stagnating. In 1993, Kenya embarked on a program of economic reform and liberalization that included removing price controls,
lowering barriers to cross-border trade, privatizing state-owned enterprises, and the adoption of conservative fiscal and monetary
m
ac r oeconomic policies. Today, the economy of the country is primarily market-based, with relatively low barriers to cross-border trade
and investment, and a vibrant private sector.
Paralleling economic reforms there have been political reforms. Like many sub-Saharan Africa nations whose boundaries were
drawn by colonial powers, the country was left divided between multiple ethnic groups. Political parties reflected these ethnic
divides. Tension between ethnic groups often marred Kenyan politics. The largest ethnic group is the Kikuyu, who, while only
comprising 22 percent of the population, have held a disproportionate influence over Kenyan politics since independence. Kenya was
effectively a one-party state until the early 1990s. Ethnic conflict has continued since then, often spilling over into the political arena.
A new constitution introduced in 2010 has offered the promise of solving some of these long-standing problems. The constitution
placed limits on the power of the central government, devolved political power into 47 semi-autonomous regions, and helped create
an electoral framework capable of facilitating regular, free, and fair elections. These political reforms have allowed for more
democracy, increased business confidence, and helped drive great economic growth in this nation of 50 million people.
Looking forward, one of Kenya’s great strengths is the relative youth of its population and an educated workforce. Kenya has
universal primary education and a respectable secondary and higher-education system. The country also has a growing urban middle
class, which will likely drive the demand for goods and services going forward. That being said, the country still faces some
significant headwinds. On the economic front, property rights are not strong, with legal title over land often poorly established. This
makes it difficult for Kenyans to raise money for business ventures using their land as collateral. More generally, according to the
World Bank, Kenyans face multiple problems starting a business due to bureaucratic procedures and corruption. On average, starting
a business in Kenya can take 126 days and involves seven separate procedures. By comparison, in South Korea it takes 11 days and
involves two procedures. The World Bank ranks Kenya 61 out of 190 nations on the ease of doing business. Corruption and ethnic
conflict remain persistent problems. Transparency International ranked Kenya 144 out of 180 nations on its 2018 corruption index.
Terrorism is also a problem with Al-Shabab (a militant group based in neighboring Somalia that has links to Al-Qaeda), which
launched violent attacks in the capital of Nairobi in 2013 and 2019. Al-Shabab’s goal is to avenge Kenyan interventions in Somalia
against Al-Shabab. Despite these problems, however, Kenya shows promise in emerging from its post-colonial past and in becoming
a dynamic multi-ethnic state with a thriving economy and a more stable democracy.
Sources: Leighann Spencer, “Kenya’s History of Political Violence: Colonialism, Vigilantes and Militias,” The Conversation, September 28, 2017; Amy Copley, “Figures of the
Week: Kenya’s Growth Trends and Prospects in Africa’s Lions,” Brookings, November 2, 2016; “Another Terrorist Outrage in Nairobi,” The Economist, January 16, 2019; X. N.
Iraki, “Why Kenya’s Economic Prospects Look Promising,” Standard Digital, January 1, 2019.
Page 40
Introduction
International business is much more complicated than domestic business because countries differ in many ways.
Countries have different political, economic, and legal systems. They vary significantly in their level of economic
development and future economic growth trajectory. Cultural practices can vary dramatically, as can the education and
skill levels of the population. All these differences can and do have major implications for the practice of international
business. They have a profound impact on the benefits, costs, and risks associated with doing business in different
countries; the way in which operations in different countries should be managed; and the strategy international firms
should pursue in different countries. The main function of this chapter and the next two is to develop an awareness of
and appreciation for the significance of country differences in political systems, economic systems, legal systems,
economic development, and societal culture. Another function of the three chapters is to describe how the political,
economic, legal, and cultural systems of many of the world’s nation-states are evolving and to draw out the implications
of these changes for the practice of international business.
This chapter focuses on how the political, economic, and legal systems of countries differ. Collectively, we refer to
these systems as constituting the political economy of a country. We use the term political economy to stress that the
political, economic, and legal systems of a country are interdependent; they interact with and influence each other, and in
doing so, they affect the level of economic well-being. In Chapter 3, we build on the concepts discussed here to explore
in detail how differences in political, economic, and legal systems influence the economic development of a nation-state
and its likely future growth trajectory. In Chapter 4, we look at differences in societal culture and at how these
differences influence the practice of international business. Moreover, as we will see in Chapter 4, societal culture has an
influence on the political, economic, and legal systems in a nation and thus its level of economic well-being. We also
discuss how the converse may occur: how political, economic, and legal systems may also shape societal culture.
The opening case illustrates some of the issues discussed in this chapter. Following independence from Britain in
1963, Kenya became a de facto one-party state that embraced socialist ideals, albeit with a distinct “African” hew. By the
1990s, the post-independence political economy of Kenya had resulted in economic stagnation. Things started to change
in the early 1990s when opposition political parties were allowed to participate in elections, and the Government
embraced economic reforms that included the privatization of public enterprises, liberalization of cross-border trade, and
the removal of price controls. Further political reforms took place in 2010 when Kenya adopted a new constitution that
devolved significant political power to autonomous regions, a development that many observers believe will help
moderate ethnic tensions in the country. Helped by a young and well-educated growing urban population, since Page 41
then the Kenyan economy has performed well and seems on track to achieve growth rates of around 6 percent
per annum. The implication is that political and economic reforms have helped boost economic growth in the country,
making it a more desirable location for international business. Nevertheless, risks remain for international businesses,
including endemic corruption, weak property rights, smoldering ethnic tensions, and terrorism.
global EDGE GET INSIGHTS BY COUNTRY
The “Get Insights by Country” section of globalEDGE™ (globaledge.msu.edu/global-insights/by/country) is your source for
information and statistical data for nearly every country around the world (more than 200 countries). As related to Chapter 2 of the text,
globalEDGE™ has a wealth of information and data on national differences in political economy. These differences are available across
a dozen menu categories in the country sections (e.g., economy, history, government, culture, risk). The “Executive Memos” on each
country page are also great for abbreviated fingertip access to current information.
Political Systems
LO2-1
Understand how the political systems of countries differ.
The political system of a country shapes its economic and legal systems.1 Thus, we need to understand the nature of
different political systems before discussing economic and legal systems. By political system, we mean the system of
government in a nation. Political systems can be assessed according to two dimensions. The first is the degree to which
they emphasize collectivism as opposed to individualism. The second is the degree to which they are democratic or
totalitarian. These dimensions are interrelated; systems that emphasize collectivism tend to lean toward totalitarianism,
whereas those that place a high value on individualism tend to be democratic. However, a large gray area exists in the
middle. It is possible to have democratic societies that emphasize a mix of collectivism and individualism. Similarly, it is
possible to have totalitarian societies that are not collectivist.
COLLECTIVISM AND INDIVIDUALISM
Collectivism refers to a political system that stresses the primacy of collective goals over individual goals.2 When
collectivism is emphasized, the needs of society as a whole are generally viewed as being more important than individual
freedoms. In such circumstances, an individual’s right to do something may be restricted on the grounds that it runs
counter to “the good of society” or to “the common good.” Advocacy of collectivism can be traced to the ancient Greek
philosopher Plato (427–347 b.c.), who, in The Republic, argued that individual rights should be sacrificed for the good of
the majority and that property should be owned in common. Plato did not equate collectivism with equality; he believed
that society should be stratified into classes, with those best suited to rule (which for Plato, naturally, were philosophers
and soldiers) administering society for the benefit of all. In modern times, the collectivist mantle has been picked up by
socialists.
Socialism
Modern socialists trace their intellectual roots to Karl Marx (1818–1883), although socialist thought clearly predates
Marx (elements of it can be traced to Plato). Marx argued that the few benefit at the expense of the many in a capitalist
society where individual freedoms are not restricted. While successful capitalists accumulate considerable wealth, Marx
postulated that the wages earned by the majority of workers in a capitalist society would be forced down to subsistence
levels. He argued that capitalists expropriate for their own use the value created by workers, while paying workers only
subsistence wages in return. According to Marx, the pay of workers does not reflect the full value of their labor. To
correct this perceived wrong, Marx advocated state ownership of the basic means of production, distribution, and
exchange (i.e., businesses). His logic was that if the state owned the means of production, the state could ensure that
workers were fully compensated for their labor. Thus, the idea is to manage state-owned enterprise to benefit society as a
whole, rather than individual capitalists.3
In the early twentieth century, the socialist ideology split into two broad camps. The communists believed that
socialism could be achieved only through violent revolution and totalitarian dictatorship, whereas the social democrats
committed themselves to achieving socialism by democratic means, turning their backs on violent revolution and
dictatorship. Both versions of socialism waxed and waned during the twentieth century.
The communist version of socialism reached its high point in the late 1970s, when the majority of the Page 42
world’s population lived in communist states. The countries under Communist Party rule at that time included
the former Soviet Union; its eastern European client nations (e.g., Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary); China; the
southeast Asian nations of Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam; various African nations (e.g., Angola and Mozambique); and
the Latin American nations of Cuba and Nicaragua. By the mid-1990s, however, communism was in retreat worldwide.
The Soviet Union had collapsed and had been replaced by a collection of 15 republics, many of which were at least
nominally structured as democracies. Communism was swept out of eastern Europe by the largely bloodless revolutions
of 1989. Although China is still nominally a communist state with substantial limits to individual political freedom, in
the economic sphere, the country has moved sharply away from strict adherence to communist ideology. Old-style
communism, with state control over all economic activity, hangs on in only a handful of small fringe states, most notably
North Korea.
Social democracy also seems to have passed a high-water mark, although the ideology may prove to be more
enduring than communism. Social democracy has had perhaps its greatest influence in a number of democratic Western
nations, including Australia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Norway, Spain, and Sweden, where
social democratic parties have often held political power. Other countries where social democracy has had an important
influence include India and Brazil. Consistent with their Marxist roots, after World War II social democratic government
in some nations nationalized some private companies, transforming them into state-owned enterprises to be run for the
“public good rather than private profit.” This trend was most marked in Great Britain where by the end of the 1970s
state-owned companies had a monopoly in the telecommunications, electricity, gas, coal, railway, and shipbuilding
industries, as well as substantial interests in the oil, airline, auto, and steel industries.
However, experience demonstrated that state ownership of the means of production ran counter to the public
interest. In many countries, state-owned companies performed poorly. Protected from competition by their monopoly
position and guaranteed government financial support, many became increasingly inefficient. Individuals paid for the
luxury of state ownership through higher prices and higher taxes. As a consequence, a number of Western democracies
voted many social democratic parties out of office in the late 1970s and early 1980s. They were succeeded by political
parties, such as Britain’s Conservative Party and Germany’s Christian Democratic Party, that were more committed to
free market economics. These parties sold state-owned enterprises to private investors (a process referred to as
privatization). Even where social democratic parties regained the levers of power, as in Great Britain in 1997 when the
left-leaning Labor Party won control of the government, they too were now committed to continued private ownership.
Individualism
The opposite of collectivism, individualism refers to a philosophy that an individual should have freedom in his or her
economic and political pursuits. In contrast to collectivism, individualism stresses that the interests of the individual
should take precedence over the interests of the state. Like collectivism, individualism can be traced to an ancient Greek
philosopher, in this case Plato’s disciple Aristotle (384–322 b.c.). In contrast to Plato, Aristotle argued that individual
diversity and private ownership are desirable. In a passage that might have been taken from a speech by contemporary
politicians who adhere to a free market ideology, he argued that private property is more highly productive than
communal property and will thus stimulate progress. According to Aristotle, communal property receives little care,
whereas property that is owned by an individual will receive the greatest care and therefore be most productive.
Individualism was reborn as an influential political philosophy in the Protestant trading nations of England and the
Netherlands during the sixteenth century. The philosophy was refined in the work of a number of British philosophers,
including David Hume (1711–1776), Adam Smith (1723–1790), and John Stuart Mill (1806–1873). Page 43
Individualism exercised a profound influence on those in the American colonies that sought independence from
Great Britain. Indeed, the concept underlies the ideas expressed in the Declaration of Independence. In the twentieth
century, several Nobel Prize–winning economists—including Milton Friedman, Friedrich von Hayek, and James
Buchanan—championed the philosophy.
Individualism is built on two central tenets. The first is an emphasis on the importance of guaranteeing individual
freedom and self-expression. The second tenet of individualism is that the welfare of society is best served by letting
people pursue their own economic self-interest, as opposed to some collective body (such as government) dictating what
is in society’s best interest. Or, as Adam Smith put it in a famous passage from The Wealth of Nations, “an individual
who intends his own gain is led by an invisible hand to promote an end that was no part of his intention. Nor is it always
worse for the society that it was no part of it. By pursuing his own interest, he frequently promotes that of the society
more effectually than when he really intends to promote it. This author has never known much good done by those who
effect to trade for the public good.”4
The central message of individualism, therefore, is that individual economic and political freedoms are the ground
rules on which a society should be based. This puts individualism in conflict with collectivism. Collectivism asserts the
primacy of the collective over the individual; individualism asserts the opposite. This underlying ideological conflict
shaped much of the recent history of the world. The Cold War, for example, was in many respects a war between
collectivism, championed by the former Soviet Union, and individualism, championed by the United States. From the
late 1980s until about 2005, the waning of collectivism was matched by the ascendancy of individualism. Democratic
ideals and market economics replaced socialism and communism in many states. Since 2005, there have been some signs
of a swing back toward left-leaning socialist ideas in several countries, including several Latin America nations such as
Venezuela, Bolivia, and Paraguay, along with Russia (see the Country Focus for details). Also, the global financial crisis
of 2008–2009 caused some reevaluation of the trends toward individualism, and it remains possible that the pendulum
might tilt back the other way.
DEMOCRACY AND TOTALITARIANISM
Democracy and totalitarianism are at different ends of a political dimension. Democracy refers to a political system in
which government is by the people, exercised either directly or through elected representatives. Totalitarianism is a
form of government in which one person or political party exercises absolute control over all spheres of human life and
prohibits opposing political parties. The democratic–totalitarian dimension is not independent of the individualism–
collectivism dimension. Democracy and individualism go hand in hand, as do the communist version of collectivism and
totalitarianism. However, gray areas exist; it is possible to have a democratic state in which collective values
predominate, and it is possible to have a totalitarian state that is hostile to collectivism and in which some degree of
individualism—particularly in the economic sphere—is encouraged. For example, China and Vietnam have seen a move
toward greater individual freedom in the economic sphere, but those countries are stilled ruled by parties that have a
monopoly on political power and constrain political freedom.
Democracy
The pure form of democracy, as originally practiced by several city-states in ancient Greece, is based on a belief that
citizens should be directly involved in decision making. In complex, advanced societies with populations in the tens or
hundreds of millions, this is impractical. Most modern democratic states practice representative democracy. The United
States, for example, is a constitutional republic that operates as a representative democracy. In a representative
democracy, citizens periodically elect individuals to represent them. These elected representatives then form a
government whose function is to make decisions on behalf of the electorate. In a representative democracy, Page 44
elected representatives who fail to perform this job adequately will be voted out of office at the next election.
COUNTRY FOCUS
Putin’s Russia
The modern Russian state was born in 1991 after the dramatic collapse of the Soviet Union. Early in the post-Soviet era, Russia
embraced ambitious policies designed to transform a communist dictatorship with a centrally planned economy into a democratic
state with a market-based economic system. The policies, however, were imperfectly implemented. Political reform left Russia
with a strong presidency that—in hindsight—had the ability to subvert the democratic process. On the economic front, the
privatization of many state-owned enterprises was done in such a way as to leave large shareholdings in the hands of the politically
connected, many of whom were party officials and factory managers under the old Soviet system. Corruption was also endemic,
and organized crime was able to seize control of some newly privatized enterprises. In 1998, the poorly managed Russian
economy went through a financial crisis that nearly bought the country to its knees.
Fast-forward to 2020, and Russia still is a long way from being a modern democracy with a functioning free market–based
economic system. On the positive side, the economy grew at a healthy clip during the early 2000s, helped in large part by high
prices for oil and gas, Russia’s largest exports (in 2013 oil and gas accounted for 75 percent of all Russian exports). Between 2000
and 2013, Russia’s gross domestic product (GDP) per capita more than doubled when measured by purchasing power parity. As of
2018, the country boasts the world’s 12th-largest economy, just behind that of South Korea and ahead of Spain. Thanks to
government oil revenues, public debt is also low by international standards—at just 16 percent of GDP in 2018 (in the United
States, by comparison, public debt amounts to 80 percent of GDP). Indeed, Russia has run a healthy trade surplus on the back of
strong oil and gas exports for the last decade.
The Russian economy is overly dependent on commodities, particularly oil and gas. This was exposed in mid-2014 when the
price of oil started to tumble as a result of rapidly increasing supply from the United States. Between mid-2014 and early 2016, the
price of oil fell from $110 a barrel to a low of around $27 before rebounding to $50. This drove a freight train through Russia’s
public finances. Much of Russia’s oil and gas production remains in the hands of enterprises in which the state still has a
significant ownership stake. The government has a controlling ownership position in Gazprom and Rosneft, two of the country’s
largest oil and gas companies. The government used the rise in oil and gas revenues between 2004 and 2014 to increase public
spending through state-led investment projects and increases in wages and pensions for government workers. While this boosted
private consumption, there has been a dearth of private investment, and productivity growth remains low. This is particularly true
among many state-owned enterprises that collectively still account for about half of the Russian economy. Now with lower oil
prices, Russia is having to issue more debt to finance public spending.
Russian private enterprises are also hamstrung by bureaucratic red tape and endemic corruption. Transparency International,
which ranks countries by the extent of corruption, ranked Russia 138 out of 180 nations in 2018. The state and state-owned
enterprises are famous for pushing work to private enterprises that are owned by political allies, which further subverts marketbased processes.
On the political front, Russia is becoming less democratic with every passing year. Since 1999, Vladimir Putin has exerted
increasingly tight control over Russian politics, either as president or as prime minister. Under Putin, potential opponents have
been sidelined, civil liberties have been progressively reduced, and the freedom of the press has been diminished. For example, in
response to opposition protests in 2011 and 2012, the Russian government passed laws increasing its control over the Internet,
dramatically raising fines for participating in “unsanctioned” street protests, and expanded the definition of treason to further limit
opposition activities. Vocal opponents of the régime—from business executives who do not toe the state line to protest groups such
as the punk rock protest band Pussy Riot—have found themselves jailed on dubious charges. To make matters worse, Putin has
tightened his grip on the legal system. In late 2013, Russia’s parliament, which is dominated by Putin supporters, gave the
president more power to appoint and fire prosecutors, thereby diminishing the independence of the legal system.
Freedom House, which produces an annual ranking tracking freedom in the world, classifies Russia as “not free” and gives it
very low scores for political and civil liberties. Freedom House notes that in the March 2012 presidential elections, Putin benefited
from preferential treatment by state-owned media, numerous abuses of incumbency, and procedural “irregularities” during the vote
count. Putin won 63.6 percent of the vote against a field of weak, hand-chosen opponents, led by Communist Party leader
Gennadiy Zyuganove, with 17.2 percent of the vote. Under a Putin-inspired 2008 constitutional amendment, the term of the
presidency was expanded from four years to six. Putin was elected to another six-year term in 2018 in an election that many
observers thought was a sham.
In 2014, Putin burnished his growing reputation for authoritarianism when he took advantage of unrest in the neighboring
country of Ukraine to annex the Crimea region and to support armed revolt by Russian-speaking separatists in eastern Ukraine.
Western powers responded to this aggression by imposing economic sanctions on Russia. Taken together with the rapid fall in oil
prices, this pushed the once-booming Russian economy into a recession. Despite economic weaknesses, there is no sign that
Putin’s hold on power has been diminished; in fact, quite the opposite seems to have occurred.
Sources: “Putin’s Russia: Sochi or Bust,” The Economist, February 1, 2014; “Russia’s Economy: The S Word,” The Economist, November 9, 2013; Freedom House,
“Freedom in the World 2019: Russia,” www.freedomhouse.org; K. Hille, “Putin Tightens Grip on Legal System,” Financial Times, November 27, 2013; “A Fourth Term for
Russia’s Perpetual President,” The Economist, March 19, 2018.
To guarantee that elected representatives can be held accountable for their actions by the electorate, an ideal
representative democracy has a number of safeguards that are typically enshrined in constitutional law. These include (1)
an individual’s right to freedom of expression, opinion, and organization; (2) a free media; (3) regular elections in which
all eligible citizens are allowed to vote; (4) universal adult suffrage; (5) limited terms for elected representatives; (6) a
fair court system that is independent from the political system; (7) a nonpolitical state bureaucracy; (8) a nonpolitical
police force and armed service; and (9) relatively free access to state information.5
Totalitarianism
I n a tot ali t ari an co untry, al l the constit ut ional guar ant ees on whi ch r epr es en t ati ve dem
ocr aci es ar e bui lt—
an i ndividual’ s
right to freedom of expression and organization, a free media, and regular elections—are denied to the citizens. In most
totalitarian states, political repression is widespread, free and fair elections are lacking, media are heavily censored, basic
civil liberties are denied, and those who question the right of the rulers to rule find themselves imprisoned or worse.
Four major forms of totalitarianism exist in the world today. Until recently, the most widespread was Page 45
communist totalitarianism. Communism, however, is in decline worldwide, and most of the Communist Party
dictatorships have collapsed since 1989. Exceptions to this trend (so far) are China, Vietnam, Laos, North Korea, and
Cuba, although most of these states exhibit clear signs that the Communist Party’s monopoly on political power is
eroding. In many respects, the governments of China, Vietnam, and Laos are communist in name only because those
nations have adopted wide-ranging, market-based economic reforms. They remain, however, totalitarian states that deny
many basic civil liberties to their populations. On the other hand, there are signs of a swing back toward communist
totalitarian ideas in some states, such as Venezuela, where the government of the late Hugo Chávez displayed totalitarian
tendencies. The same is true in Russia, where the government of Vladimir Putin has become increasingly totalitarian
over time (see the Country Focus).
A second form of totalitarianism might be labeled theocratic totalitarianism. Theocratic totalitarianism is found in
states where political power is monopolized by a party, group, or individual that governs according to religious
principles. The most common form of theocratic totalitarianism is based on Islam and is exemplified by states such as
Iran and Saudi Arabia. These states limit freedom of political and religious expression with laws based on Islamic
principles.
A third form of totalitarianism might be referred to as tribal totalitarianism. Tribal totalitarianism has Page 46
arisen from time to time in African countries such as Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Uganda, and Kenya. The borders of
most African states reflect the administrative boundaries drawn by the old European colonial powers rather than tribal
realities. Consequently, the typical African country contains a number of tribes (e.g., in Kenya there are more than 40
tribes). Tribal totalitarianism occurs when a political party that represents the interests of a particular tribe (and not
always the majority tribe) monopolizes power. In Kenya, for example, politicians from the Kikuyu tribe have long
dominated the political system (see the Opening Case).
A fourth major form of totalitarianism might be described as right-wing totalitarianism. Right-wing
totalitarianism generally permits some individual economic freedom but restricts individual political freedom, frequently
on the grounds that it would lead to the rise of communism. A common feature of many right-wing dictatorships is an
overt hostility to socialist or communist ideas. Many right-wing totalitarian governments are backed by the military, and
in some cases, the government may be made up of military officers. The fascist regimes that ruled Germany and Italy in
the 1930s and 1940s were right-wing totalitarian states. Until the early 1980s, right-wing dictatorships, many of which
were military dictatorships, were common throughout Latin America (e.g., Brazil was ruled by a military dictatorship
between 1964 and 1985). They were also found in several Asian countries, particularly South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore,
Indonesia, and the Philippines. Since the early 1980s, however, this form of government has been in retreat. Most Latin
American countries are now genuine multiparty democracies. Similarly, South Korea, Taiwan, and the Philippines have
all become functioning democracies, as has Indonesia.
Pseudo-Democracies
Many of the world’s nations are neither pure democracies nor iron-clad totalitarian states. Rather they lie between pure
democracies and complete totalitarian systems of government. They might be described as imperfect or pseudodemocracies, where authoritarian elements have captured some or much of the machinery of state and use this in an
attempt to deny basic political and civil liberties. In the Russia of Vladimir Putin, for example, elections are still held,
people compete through the ballot box for political office, and the independent press does not always toe the official line.
However, Putin has used his position to systematically limit the political and civil liberties of opposition groups. His
control is not yet perfect, though. Voices opposing Putin are still heard in Russia, and in theory, elections are still
contested. But in practice, it is becoming increasingly difficult to challenge a man and régime that have systematically
extended their political, legal, and economic power over the past two decades (see the Country Focus).
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Economic Systems
LO2-2
Understand how the economic systems of countries differ.
It should be clear from the previous section that political ideology and economic systems are connected. In countries
where individual goals are given primacy over collective goals, we are more likely to find market-based economic
systems. In contrast, in countries where collective goals are given preeminence, the state may have taken control over
many enterprises; markets in such countries are likely to be restricted rather than free. We can identify three broad types
of economic systems: a market economy, a command economy, and a mixed economy.
MARKET ECONOMY
In the archetypal pure market economy, all productive activities are privately owned, as opposed to being owned by the
state. The goods and services that a country produces are not planned by anyone. Production is determined by Page 47
the interaction of supply and demand and signaled to producers through the price system. If demand for a
product exceeds supply, prices will rise, signaling producers to produce more. If supply exceeds demand, prices will fall,
signaling producers to produce less. In this system, consumers are sovereign. The purchasing patterns of consumers, as
signaled to producers through the mechanism of the price system, determine what is produced and in what quantity.
For a market to work in this manner, supply must not be restricted. A supply restriction occurs when a single firm
monopolizes a market. In such circumstances, rather than increase output in response to increased demand, a monopolist
might restrict output and let prices rise. This allows the monopolist to take a greater profit margin on each unit it sells.
Although this is good for the monopolist, it is bad for the consumer, who has to pay higher prices. It also is probably bad
for the welfare of society. Because a monopolist has no competitors, it has no incentive to search for ways to lower
production costs. Rather, it can simply pass on cost increases to consumers in the form of higher prices. The net result is
that the monopolist is likely to become increasingly inefficient, producing high-priced, low-quality goods, and society
suffers as a consequence.
Given the dangers inherent in monopoly, one role of government in a market economy is to encourage vigorous
free and fair competition between private producers. Governments do this by banning restrictive business practices
designed to monopolize a market (antitrust laws serve this function in the United States and European Union). Private
ownership also encourages vigorous competition and economic efficiency. Private ownership ensures that entrepreneurs
have a right to the profits generated by their own efforts. This gives entrepreneurs an incentive to search for better ways
of serving consumer needs. That may be through introducing new products, by developing more efficient production
processes, by pursuing better marketing and after-sale service, or simply through managing their businesses more
efficiently than their competitors. In turn, the constant improvement in product and process that results from such an
incentive has been argued to have a major positive impact on economic growth and development.6
COMMAND ECONOMY
In a pure command economy, the government plans the goods and services that a country produces, the quantity in
which they are produced, and the prices at which they are sold. Consistent with the collectivist ideology, the objective of
a command economy is for government to allocate resources for “the good of society.” In addition, in a pure command
economy, all businesses are state owned, the rationale being that the government can then direct them to make
investments that are in the best interests of the nation as a whole rather than in the interests of private individuals.
Historically, command economies were found in communist countries where collectivist goals were given priority over
individual goals. Since the demise of communism in the late 1980s, the number of command economies has fallen
dramatically. Some elements of a command economy were also evident in a number of democratic nations led by
socialist-inclined governments. France and India both experimented with extensive government planning and state
ownership, although government planning has fallen into disfavor in both countries.
While the objective of a command economy is to mobilize economic resources for the public good, the opposite
often seems to have occurred. In a command economy, state-owned enterprises have little incentive to control costs and
be efficient because they cannot go out of business. Also, the abolition of private ownership means there is no incentive
for individuals to look for better ways to serve consumer needs; hence, dynamism and innovation are absent from
command economies. Instead of growing and becoming more prosperous, such economies tend to stagnate.
Page 48
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un visiting a factory.
AFP/Getty Images
MIXED ECONOMY
Mixed economies can be found between market and command economies. In a mixed economy, certain sectors of the
economy are left to private ownership and free market mechanisms, while other sectors have significant state ownership
and government planning. Mixed economies were once common throughout much of the developed world, although they
are becoming less so. Until the 1980s, Great Britain, France, and Sweden were mixed economies, but extensive
privatization has reduced state ownership of businesses in all three nations. A similar trend occurred in many other
countries where there was once a large state-owned sector, such as Brazil, Italy, and India (although there are still stateowned enterprises in all of these nations). As a counterpoint, the involvement of the state in economic activity has been
on the rise again in countries such as Russia and Venezuela, where authoritarian regimes have seized control of the
political structure, typically by first winning power through democratic means and then subverting those same structures
to maintain their grip on power.
In mixed economies, governments also tend to take into state ownership troubled firms whose continued operation
is thought to be vital to national interests. For example, in 2008 the U.S. government took an 80 percent stake in AIG to
stop that financial institution from collapsing, the theory being that if AIG did collapse, it would have very serious
consequences for the entire financial system. The U.S. government usually prefers market-oriented solutions to economic
problems, and in the AIG case, the intention was to sell the institution back to private investors as soon as possible. The
United States also took similar action with respect to a number of other troubled private enterprises, including Citigroup
and General Motors. In all these cases, the government stake was seen as nothing more than a short-term action designed
to stave off economic collapse by injecting capital into troubled enterprises in highly unusually circumstances. As soon
as it was able to, the government sold these stakes. In early 2010, for example, the U.S. government sold its stake in
Citigroup. The government stake in AIG was sold off in 2012, and by 2014, it had also disposed of its stake in GM.
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Page 49
Legal Systems
LO2-3
Understand how the legal systems of countries differ.
The legal system of a country refers to the rules, or laws, that regulate behavior along with the processes by which the
laws are enforced and through which redress for grievances is obtained. The legal system of a country is of immense
importance to international business. A country’s laws regulate business practice, define the manner in which business
transactions are to be executed, and set down the rights and obligations of those involved in business transactions. The
legal environments of countries differ in significant ways. As we shall see, differences in legal systems can affect the
attractiveness of a country as an investment site or market.
Like the economic system of a country, the legal system is influenced by the prevailing political system (although it
is also strongly influenced by historical tradition). The government of a country defines the legal framework within
which firms do business, and often the laws that regulate business reflect the rulers’ dominant political ideology. For
example, collectivist-inclined totalitarian states tend to enact laws that severely restrict private enterprise, whereas the
laws enacted by governments in democratic states where individualism is the dominant political philosophy tend to be
pro-private enterprise and pro-consumer.
Here, we focus on several issues that illustrate how legal systems can vary—and how such variations can affect
international business. First, we look at some basic differences in legal systems. Next we look at contract law. Third, we
look at the laws governing property rights with particular reference to patents, copyrights, and trademarks. Then we
discuss protection of intellectual property. Finally, we look at laws covering product safety and product liability.
DIFFERENT LEGAL SYSTEMS
There are three main types of legal systems—or legal traditions—in use around the world: common law, civil law, and
theocratic law.
Common Law
The common law system evolved in England over hundreds of years. It is now found in most of Great Britain’s former
colonies, including the United States. Common law is based on tradition, precedent, and custom. Tradition refers to a
country’s legal history, precedent to cases that have come before the courts in the past, and custom to the ways in which
laws are applied in specific situations. When law courts interpret common law, they do so with regard to these
characteristics. This gives a common law system a degree of flexibility that other systems lack. Judges in a common law
system have the power to interpret the law so that it applies to the unique circumstances of an individual case. In turn,
each new interpretation sets a precedent that may be followed in future cases. As new precedents arise, laws may be
altered, clarified, or amended to deal with new situations.
Civil Law
A civil law system is based on a detailed set of laws organized into codes. When law courts interpret civil law, they do
so with regard to these codes. More than 80 countries—including Germany, France, Japan, and Russia—operate with a
civil law system. A civil law system tends to be less adversarial than a common law system because the judges rely on
detailed legal codes rather than interpreting tradition, precedent, and custom. Judges under a civil law system have less
flexibility than those under a common law system. Judges in a common law system have the power to interpret the law,
whereas judges in a civil law system have the power only to apply the law.
Theocratic Law
A theocratic law system is one in which the law is based on religious teachings. Islamic law is the most widely
practiced theocratic legal system in the modern world, although usage of both Hindu and Jewish law persisted Page 50
into the twentieth century. Islamic law is primarily a moral rather than a commercial law and is intended to
govern all aspects of life.7 The foundation for Islamic law is the holy book of Islam, the Koran, along with the Sunnah,
or decisions and sayings of the Prophet Muhammad, and the writings of Islamic scholars who have derived rules by
analogy from the principles established in the Koran and the Sunnah. Because the Koran and Sunnah are holy
documents, the basic foundations of Islamic law cannot be changed. However, in practice, Islamic jurists and scholars
are constantly debating the application of Islamic law to the modern world. In reality, many Muslim countries have legal
systems that are a blend of Islamic law and a common or civil law system.
Although Islamic law is primarily concerned with moral behavior, it has been extended to cover certain commercial
activities. An example is the payment or receipt of interest, which is considered usury and outlawed by the Koran. To the
devout Muslim, acceptance of interest payments is seen as a grave sin; the giver and the taker are equally damned. This
is not just a matter of theology; in several Islamic states, it has also become a matter of law. In the 1990s, for example,
Pakistan’s Federal Shariat Court, the highest Islamic lawmaking body in the country, pronounced interest to be unIslamic and therefore illegal and demanded that the government amend all financial laws accordingly. In 1999,
Pakistan’s Supreme Court ruled that Islamic banking methods should be used in the country after July 1, 2001.8 By the
late 2000s, there were some 500 Islamic financial institutions in the world, and as of 2014, they collectively managed
more than $1 trillion in assets. In addition to Pakistan, Islamic financial institutions are found in many of the Gulf states,
Egypt, Malaysia, and Iran.9
DIFFERENCES IN CONTRACT LAW
The difference between common law and civil law systems can be illustrated by the approach of each to contract law
(remember, most theocratic legal systems also have elements of common or civil law). A contract is a document that
specifies the conditions under which an exchange is to occur and details the rights and obligations of the parties
involved. Some form of contract regulates many business transactions. Contract law is the body of law that governs
contract enforcement. The parties to an agreement normally resort to contract law when one party feels the other has
violated either the letter or the spirit of an agreement.
Because common law tends to be relatively ill specified, contracts drafted under a common law framework tend to
be very detailed with all contingencies spelled out. In civil law systems, however, contracts tend to be much shorter and
less specific because many of the issues are already covered in a civil code. Thus, it is more expensive to draw up
contracts in a common law jurisdiction, and resolving contract disputes can be very adversarial in common law systems.
But common law systems have the advantage of greater flexibility and allow judges to interpret a contract dispute in light
of the prevailing situation. International businesses need to be sensitive to these differences; approaching a contract
dispute in a state with a civil law system as if it had a common law system may backfire, and vice versa.
When contract disputes arise in international trade, there is always the question of which country’s laws to apply.
To resolve this issue, a number of countries, including the United States, have ratified the United Nations Convention
on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG). The CISG establishes a uniform set of rules governing
certain aspects of the making and performance of everyday commercial contracts between sellers and buyers who have
their places of business in different nations. By adopting the CISG, a nation signals to other adopters that it will treat the
convention’s rules as part of its law. The CISG applies automatically to all contracts for the sale of goods between
different firms based in countries that have ratified the convention, unless the parties to the contract explicitly opt out.
One problem with the CISG, however, is that as of 2018, only 89 nations had ratified the convention (the CISG went into
effect in 1988).10 Some of the world’s important trading nations, including India and the United Kingdom, have not
ratified the CISG.
Page 51
When firms do not wish to accept the CISG, they often opt for arbitration by a recognized arbitration court
to settle contract disputes. The most well known of these courts is the International Court of Arbitration of the
International Chamber of Commerce in Paris, which handles more than 500 requests per year from more than 100
countries.11
PROPERTY RIGHTS AND CORRUPTION
In a legal sense, the term property refers to a resource over which an individual or business holds a legal title, that is, a
resource that it owns. Resources include land, buildings, equipment, capital, mineral rights, businesses, and intellectual
property (ideas, which are protected by patents, copyrights, and trademarks). Property rights refer to the legal rights
over the use to which a resource is put and over the use made of any income that may be derived from that resource.12
Countries differ in the extent to which their legal systems define and protect property rights. Almost all countries now
have laws on their books that protect property rights. Even China, still nominally a communist state despite its booming
market economy, finally enacted a law to protect the rights of private property holders in 2007 (the law gives individuals
the same legal protection for their property as the state has).13 However, in many countries these laws are not enforced
by the authorities, and property rights are violated. Property rights can be violated in two ways: through private action
and through public action.
Private Action
In terms of violating property rights, private action refers to theft, piracy, blackmail, and the like by private individuals
or groups. Although theft occurs in all countries, a weak legal system allows a much higher level of criminal action. For
example, in the chaotic period following the collapse of communism in Russia, an outdated legal system, coupled with a
weak police force and judicial system, offered both domestic and foreign businesses scant protection from blackmail by
the “Russian Mafia.” Successful business owners in Russia often had to pay “protection money” to the Mafia or face
violent retribution, including bombings and assassinations (about 500 contract killings of businessmen occurred per year
in the 1990s).14
Russia is not alone in having organized crime problems (and the situation in Russia has improved since the 1990s).
The Mafia has a long history in the United States (Chicago in the 1930s was similar to Moscow in the 1990s). In Japan,
the local version of the Mafia, known as the yakuza, runs protection rackets, particularly in the food and entertainment
industries.15 However, there was a big difference between the magnitude of such activity in Russia in the 1990s and its
limited impact in Japan and the United States. The difference arose because the legal enforcement apparatus, such as the
police and court system, was weak in Russia following the collapse of communism. Many other countries from time to
time have had problems similar to or even greater than those experienced by Russia.
Public Action and Corruption
Public action to violate property rights occurs when public officials, such as politicians and government bureaucrats,
extort income, resources, or the property itself from property holders. This can be done through legal mechanisms such
as levying excessive taxation, requiring expensive licenses or permits from property holders, taking assets into state
ownership without compensating the owners, or redistributing assets without compensating the prior owners. It can also
be done through illegal means, or corruption, by demanding bribes from businesses in return for the rights to operate in a
country, industry, or location.16
Corruption has been well documented in every society, from the banks of the Congo River to the palace of the
Dutch royal family, from Japanese politicians to Brazilian bankers, and from government officials in Zimbabwe to the
New York City Police Department. The government of the late Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines was famous for
demanding bribes from foreign businesses wishing to set up operations in that country. The same was true of Page 52
government officials in Indonesia under the rule of former President Suharto. No society is immune to
corruption. However, there are systematic differences in the extent of corruption. In some countries, the rule of law
minimizes corruption. Corruption is seen and treated as illegal, and when discovered, violators are punished by the full
force of the law. In other countries, the rule of law is weak and corruption by bureaucrats and politicians is rife.
Corruption is so endemic in some countries that politicians and bureaucrats regard it as a perk of office and openly flout
laws against corruption. This seems to have been the case in Brazil until recently; the situation there may be evolving in
a more positive direction.
According to Transparency International, an independent nonprofit organization dedicated to exposing and fighting
corruption, businesses and individuals spend some $400 billion a year worldwide on bribes related to government
procurement contracts alone.17 Transparency International has also measured the level of corruption among public
officials in different countries.18 As can be seen in Figure 2.1, the organization rated countries such as New Zealand and
Sweden as clean; it rated others, such as Russia, Zimbabwe, and Venezuela, as corrupt. Somalia ranked last out of all
180 countries in the survey (the country is often described as a “failed state”).
FIGURE 2.1 Rankings of corruption by country, 2018.
Source: Constructed by the author from raw data from Transparency International, Corruption Perceptions Index 2018.
Economic evidence suggests that high levels of corruption significantly reduce the foreign direct investment, level
of international trade, and economic growth rate in a country.19 By siphoning off profits, corrupt politicians and
bureaucrats reduce the returns to business investment and, hence, reduce the incentive of both domestic and foreign
businesses to invest in that country. The lower level of investment that results hurts economic growth. Thus, we would
expect countries with high levels of corruption such as Indonesia, Nigeria, and Russia to have a lower rate of economic
growth than might otherwise have been the case. A detailed example of the negative effect that corruption can have on
economic development is given in the accompanying Country Focus, which looks at the impact of corruption on
economic growth in Brazil.
Page 53
COUNTRY FOCUS
Corruption in Brazil
Brazil is the seventh-largest economy in the world with a gross domestic product of $2 trillion. The country has a democratic
government and an economy characterized by moderately free markets, although the country’s largest oil producer (Petrobras) and
one of its top banks (Banco do Brazil) are both state owned. Many economists, however, have long felt that the country has never
quite lived up to its considerable economic potential. A major reason for this has been an endemically high level of corruption that
favors those with political connections and discourages investment by more ethical businesses.
Transparency International, a nongovernmental organization that evaluates countries based on perceptions of how corrupt they
are, ranked Brazil 105th out of the 180 countries it looked at in its 2018 report. The problems it identifies in Brazil include public
officials who demand bribes in return for awarding government contracts and “influence peddling,” in which elected officials use
their position in government to obtain favors or preferential treatment. Consistent with this, according to a study by the World
Economic Forum, Brazil ranks 135th out of 144 countries in the proper use of public funds.
Over the last decade, several corruption scandals have come to light that serve to emphasize Brazil’s corruption problem. In
2005, a scandal known as the mensalao (the monthly payoff scandal) broke. The scandal started when a midlevel postal official
was caught on film pocketing a modest bribe in exchange for promises to favor certain businesses in landing government contracts.
Further investigation uncovered a web of influence peddling in which fat monthly payments were given to lawmakers willing to
back government initiatives in National Congress. After a lengthy investigation, in late 2012 some 25 politicians and business
executives were found guilty of crimes that included bribery, money laundering, and corruption.
The public uproar surrounding the mensalao scandal was just starting to die down when in March 2014 another corruption
scandal captured the attention of Brazilians. This time it involved the state-owned oil company, Petrobras. Under a scheme that
seems to have been operating since 1997, construction firms wanting to do business with Petrobras agreed to pay bribes to the
company’s executives. Many of these executives were themselves political appointees. The executives would inflate the value of
contracts they awarded, adding a 3 percent “fee,” which was effectively a kickback. The 3 percent fee was shared among Petrobras
executives, construction industry executives, and politicians. The construction companies established shell companies to make
payments and launder the money. According to prosecutors investigating the case, the total value of bribes may have exceeded
$3.7 billion.
Four former Petrobras officials and at least 23 construction company executives have been charged with crimes that include
corruption and money laundering. In addition, Brazil’s Supreme Court has given prosecutors the go-ahead to investigate 48 current
or former members of Congress, including the former Brazilian President Fernando Collor de Mello. The Brazilian president,
Dilma Rousseff, was also tainted by the scandal. In June 2016, she was suspended from the presidency pending an impeachment
trial. She was chair of Petrobras during the time this was occurring. She is also a member of the governing Workers’ Party, several
members of which seem to have been among the major beneficiaries of the kickback scandal. Although there is no evidence that
Rousseff knew of the bribes or profited from them, her ability to govern effectively was severely damaged by association. The
scandal so rocked Brazil that it pushed the country close to a recession. In August 2016, Rousseff was impeached and removed
from the presidency. Then in 2018 the former Brazilian President, Lula da Silva, was found guilty of corruption. Among the
charges against Lula were that, when President, he was given a beach-front apartment by an engineering firm in return for his help
in winning lucrative contracts for Petrobras. Lula was sentenced to 12 years in prison.
If there is a bright spot in all of this, it is that the scandals are coming to light. Backed by Supreme Court rulings and public
outrage, corrupted politicians, government officials, and business executives are being prosecuted. In the past, that was far less
likely to occur.
Sources: Will Conners and Luciana Magalhaes, “Brazil Cracks Open Vast Bribery Scandal,” The Wall Street Journal, April 7, 2015; Marc Margolis, “In Brazil’s Trial of the
Century, Lula’s Reputation Is at Stake,” Newsweek, July 27, 2012; “The Big Oily,” The Economist, January 3, 2015; Donna Bowater, “Brazil’s Continuing Corruption
Problem,” BBC News, September 18, 2015; Simon Romero, “Dilma Rousseff Is Ousted as Brazil’s President in Impeachment Vote,” The New York Times, August 31, 2016;
“Brazilian Corruption Scandals: All You Need to Know,” BBC News, April 8, 2018.
Page 54
MANAGEMENT FOCUS
Did Walmart Violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act?
In the early 2000s, Walmart wanted to build a new store in San Juan Teotihuacan, Mexico, barely a mile from ancient pyramids
that drew tourists from around the world. The owner of the land was happy to sell to Walmart, but one thing stood in the way of a
deal: the city’s new zoning laws. These prohibited commercial development in the historic area. Not to be denied, executives at the
headquarters of Walmart de Mexico found a way around the problem: They paid a $52,000 bribe to a local official to redraw the
zoning area so that the property Walmart wanted to purchase was placed outside the commercial-free zone. Walmart then went
ahead and built the store, despite vigorous local opposition, opening it in late 2004.
A former lawyer for Walmart de Mexico subsequently contacted Walmart executives at the company’s corporate headquarters
in Bentonville, Arkansas. He told them that Walmart de Mexico routinely resorted to bribery, citing the altered zoning map as just
one example. Alarmed, executives at Walmart started their own investigation. Faced with growing evidence of corruption in
Mexico, top Walmart executives decided to engage in damage control, rather than coming clean. Walmart’s top lawyer shipped the
case files back to Mexico and handed over responsibility for the investigation to the general council of Walmart de Mexico. This
was an interesting choice as the very same general council was alleged to have authorized bribes. The general council quickly
exonerated fellow Mexican executives, and the internal investigation was closed in 2006.
For several years nothing more happened; then, in April 2012, The New York Times published an article detailing bribery by
Walmart. The Times cited the changed zoning map and several other examples of bribery by Walmart: for example, eight bribes
totaling $341,000 enabled Walmart to build a Sam’s Club in one of Mexico City’s most densely populated neighborhoods without
a construction license, an environmental permit, an urban impact assessment, or even a traffic permit. Similarly, thanks to nine
bribe payments totaling $765,000, Walmart built a vast refrigerated distribution center in an environmentally fragile flood basin
north of Mexico City, in an area where electricity was so scarce that many smaller developers were turned away.
Walmart responded to The New York Times article by ramping up a second internal investigation into bribery that it had
initiated in 2011. By mid-2015, there were reportedly more than 300 outside lawyers working on the investigation, and it had cost
more than $612 million in fees. In addition, the U.S. Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission both
announced that they had started investigations into Walmart’s practices. In November 2012, Walmart reported that its own
investigation into violations had extended beyond Mexico to include China and India. Among other things, it was looking into the
allegations by the Times that top executives at Walmart, including former CEO Lee Scott Jr., had deliberately squashed earlier
investigations. In late 2016 people familiar with the matter stated that the federal investigation had not uncovered evidence of
widespread bribery. In November 2017 it was reported that Walmart had settled with the Justice Department and paid a $283
million fine, significantly less than had been expected.
Sources: David Barstow, “Vast Mexican Bribery Case Hushed Up by Wal-Mart after Top Level Struggle,” The New York Times, April 21, 2012; Stephanie Clifford and David
Barstow, “Wal-Mart Inquiry Reflects Alarm on Corruption,” The New York Times, November 15, 2012; Nathan Vardi, “Why Justice Department Could Hit Wal-Mart Hard
over Mexican Bribery Allegations,” Forbes, April 22, 2012; Phil Wahba,“Walmart Bribery Probe by Feds Finds No Major Misconduct in Mexico,” Fortune, October 18,
2015; T. Schoenberg and M. Robinson, “Wal-Mart Balks at Paying $600 Million in Bribery Case,” Bloomberg, October 6, 2016; and Sue Reisinger, “Wal-Mart Reserves
$283 million to Settle Mexico FCPA Case,” Corporate Counsel, November 17, 2017.
Foreign Corrupt Practices Act
In the 1970s, the United States passed the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) following revelations that U.S.
companies had bribed government officials in foreign countries in an attempt to win lucrative contracts. This law makes
it illegal to bribe a foreign government official to obtain or maintain business over which that foreign official has
authority, and it requires all publicly traded companies (whether or not they are involved in international trade) to keep
detailed records that would reveal whether a violation of the act has occurred. In 2012, evidence emerged that in its
eagerness to expand in Mexico, Walmart may have run afoul of the FCPA (for details, see the Management Focus
feature).
In 1997, trade and finance ministers from the member states of the Organisation for Economic Co- Page 55
operation and Development (OECD), an association of 34 major economies including most Western economies
(but not Russia, India or China), adopted the Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in
International Business Transactions.20 The convention obliges member states to make the bribery of foreign public
officials a criminal offense.
Did You Know?
Did you know that Venezuela has dropped to one of the worst performing economies in the world?
Visit your instructor’s Connect® course and click on your eBook or SmartBook® to view a short video explanation from
the author.
Both the U.S. law and OECD convention include language that allows exceptions known as facilitating or
expediting payments (also called grease payments or speed money), the purpose of which is to expedite or to secure the
performance of a routine governmental action.21 For example, they allow small payments made to speed up the issuance
of permits or licenses, process paperwork, or just get vegetables off the dock and on their way to market. The
explanation for this exception to general antibribery provisions is that while grease payments are, technically, bribes,
they are distinguishable from (and, apparently, less offensive than) bribes used to obtain or maintain business because
they merely facilitate performance of duties that the recipients are already obligated to perform.
THE PROTECTION OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
Intellectual property refers to property that is the product of intellectual activity, such as computer software, a
screenplay, a music score, or the chemical formula for a new drug. Patents, copyrights, and trademarks establish
ownership rights over intellectual property. A patent grants the inventor of a new product or process exclusive rights for
a defined period to the manufacture, use, or sale of that invention. Copyrights are the exclusive legal rights of authors,
composers, playwrights, artists, and publishers to publish and disperse their work as they see fit. Trademarks are
designs and names, officially registered, by which merchants or manufacturers can differentiate their products (e.g.,
Christian Dior clothes). In the high-technology “knowledge” economy of the twenty-first century, intellectual property
has become an increasingly important source of economic value for businesses. Protecting intellectual property has also
become increasingly problematic, particularly if it can be rendered in a digital form and then copied and distributed at
very low cost via pirated DVDs or over the Internet (e.g., computer software, music, and video recordings).22
The philosophy behind intellectual property laws is to reward the originator of a new invention, book, musical
record, clothes design, restaurant chain, and the like for his or her idea and effort. Such laws stimulate innovation and
creative work. They provide an incentive for people to search for novel ways of doing things, and they reward creativity.
For example, consider innovation in the pharmaceutical industry. A patent will grant the inventor of a new drug a 20year monopoly in production of that drug. This gives pharmaceutical firms an incentive to undertake the expensive,
difficult, and time-consuming basic research required to generate new drugs (it can cost $1 billion in R&D and take 12
years to get a new drug on the market). Without the guarantees provided by patents, companies would be unlikely to
commit themselves to extensive basic research.23
The protection of intellectual property rights differs greatly from country to country. Although many countries have
stringent intellectual property regulations on their books, the enforcement of these regulations has often been lax. This
has been the case even among many of the 192 countries that are now members of the World Intellectual Property
Organization, all of which have signed international treaties designed to protect intellectual property, including the
oldest such treaty, the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property, which dates to 1883 and has been
signed by more than 170 nations. Weak enforcement encourages the piracy (theft) of intellectual property. China and
Thailand have often been among the worst offenders in Asia. Pirated computer software is widely available in China.
Similarly, the streets of Bangkok, Thailand’s capital, are lined with stands selling pirated copies of Rolex watches, Levi’s
jeans, DVDs, and computer software.
The computer software industry is an example of an industry that suffers from lax enforcement of intellectual
property rights. A study published in 2012 suggested that violations of intellectual property rights cost personal computer
software firms revenues equal to $63 billion a year.24 According to the study’s sponsor, the Business Software Alliance,
a software industry association, some 42 percent of all software applications used in the world were pirated. Page 56
One of the worst large countries was China, where the piracy rate ran at 77 percent and cost the industry more
than $9.8 billion in lost sales, up from $444 million in 1995. The piracy rate in the United States was much lower at 19
percent; however, the value of sales lost was significant because of the size of the U.S. market.25
MANAGEMENT FOCUS
Starbucks Wins Key Trademark Case in China
Starbucks has big plans for China. It believes the fast-growing nation will become the company’s second-largest market after the
United States. Starbucks entered the country in 1999, and by the end of 2016 it had opened more than 1,300 stores. But in China,
c opycats of well -es t abl ished W
ester n br ands ar e comm
on. St arbucks f aced competit i on f r oma l ook-al i ke, Shanghai Xin g Ba Ke
Coffee Shop, whose stores closely matched the Starbucks format, right down to a green-and-white Xing Ba Ke circular logo that
mimics Starbucks’ ubiquitous logo. The name also mimics the standard Chinese translation for Starbucks. Xing means “star,” and
Ba Ke sounds like “bucks.”
In 2003, Starbucks decided to sue Xing Ba Ke in Chinese court for trademark violations. Xing Ba Ke’s general manager
responded by claiming it was just an accident that the logo and name were so similar to that of Starbucks. He claimed the right to
use the logo and name because Xing Ba Ke had registered as a company in Shanghai in 1999, before Starbucks entered the city. “I
hadn’t heard of Starbucks at the time,” claimed the manager, “so how could I imitate its brand and logo?”
However, in January 2006, a Shanghai court ruled that Starbucks had precedence, in part because it had registered its Chinese
name in 1998. The court stated that Xing Ba Ke’s use of the name and similar logo was “clearly malicious” and constituted
improper competition. The court ordered Xing Ba Ke to stop using the name and to pay Starbucks $62,000 in compensation. While
the money involved here may be small, the precedent is not. In a country where violation of trademarks has been common, the
courts seem to be signaling a shift toward greater protection of intellectual property rights. This is perhaps not surprising because
foreign governments and the World Trade Organization have been pushing China hard recently to start respecting intellectual
property rights.
Sources: M. Dickie, “Starbucks Wins Case against Chinese Copycat,” Financial Times, January 3, 2006, p. 1; “Starbucks: Chinese Court Backs Company over Trademark
Infringement,” The Wall Street Journal, January 2, 2006, p. A11; and “Starbucks Calls China Its Top Growth Focus,” The Wall Street Journal, February 14, 2006, p. 1.
International businesses have a number of possible responses to violations of their intellectual property. They can
lobby their respective governments to push for international agreements to ensure that intellectual property rights are
protected and that the law is enforced. Partly as a result of such actions, international laws are being strengthened. As we
shall see in Chapter 7, the most recent world trade agreement, signed in 1994, for the first time extends the scope of the
General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade to cover intellectual property. Under the new agreement, known as the TradeRelated Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), as of 1995 a council of the World Trade Organization is
overseeing enforcement of much stricter intellectual property regulations. These regulations oblige WTO members to
grant and enforce patents lasting at least 20 years and copyrights lasting 50 years after the death of the author. Rich
countries had to comply with the rules within a year. Poor countries, in which such protection generally was much
weaker, had five years of grace, and the very poorest have 10 years.26 (For further details of the TRIPS agreement, see
Chapter 7.)
In addition to lobbying governments, firms can file lawsuits on their own behalf. For example, Starbucks won a
landmark trademark copyright case in China against a copycat that signaled a change in the approach in China (see the
accompanying Management Focus for details). Firms may also choose to stay out of countries where intellectual
property laws are lax, rather than risk having their ideas stolen by local entrepreneurs. Firms also need to be on the alert
to ensure that pirated copies of their products produced in countries with weak intellectual property laws don’t turn up in
their home market or in third countries. U.S. computer software giant Microsoft, for example, discovered that pirated
Microsoft software, produced illegally in Thailand, was being sold worldwide as the real thing.
Page 57
PRODUCT SAFETY AND PRODUCT LIABILITY
Product safety laws set certain safety standards to which a product must adhere. Product liability involves holding a
firm and its officers responsible when a product causes injury, death, or damage. Product liability can be much greater if
a product does not conform to required safety standards. Both civil and criminal product liability laws exist. Civil laws
call for payment and monetary damages. Criminal liability laws result in fines or imprisonment. Both civil and criminal
liability laws are probably more extensive in the United States than in any other country, although many other Western
nations also have comprehensive liability laws. Liability laws are typically the least extensive in less developed nations.
A boom in product liability suits and awards in the United States resulted in a dramatic increase in the cost of liability
insurance. Many business executives argue that the high costs of liability insurance make American businesses less
competitive in the global marketplace.
In addition to the competitiveness issue, country differences in product safety and liability laws raise an important
ethical issue for firms doing business abroad. When product safety laws are tougher in a firm’s home country than in a
foreign country or when liability laws are more lax, should a firm doing business in that foreign country follow the more
relaxed local standards or should it adhere to the standards of its home country? While the ethical thing to do is
undoubtedly to adhere to home-country standards, firms have been known to take advantage of lax safety and liability
laws to do business in a manner that would not be allowed at home.
TEST PREP
Use SmartBook to help retain what you have learned. Access your Instructor’s Connect course to check out SmartBook
or go to learnsmartadvantage.com for help.
FOCUS ON MANAGERIAL IMPLICATIONS
LO2-4
Explain the implications for management practice of national differences in political economy.
THE MACRO ENVIRONMENT INFLUENCES MARKET ATTRACTIVENESS
The material discussed in this chapter has two broad implications for international business. First, the political,
economic, and legal systems of a country raise important ethical issues that have implications for the practice of
international business. For example, what ethical implications are associated with doing business in totalitarian countries
where citizens are denied basic human rights, corruption is rampant, and bribes are necessary to gain permission to do
business? Is it right to operate in such a setting? A full discussion of the ethical implications of country differences in
political economy is reserved for Chapter 5, where we explore ethics in international business in much greater depth.
Second, the political, economic, and legal environments of a country clearly influence the attractiveness of that
country as a market or investment site. The benefits, costs, and risks associated with doing business in a country are a
function of that country’s political, economic, and legal systems. The overall attractiveness of a country as a market or
investment site depends on balancing the likely long-term benefits of doing business in that country against the likely
costs and risks. Because this chapter is the first of two dealing with issues of political economy, we will delay a detailed
discussion of how political economy impacts the benefits, costs, and risks of doing business in different nation-states
until the end of the next chapter, when we have a full grasp of all the relevant variables that are important for assessing
benefits, costs, and risks.
For now, other things being equal, a nation with democratic political institutions, a market-based economic system,
and strong legal system that protects property rights and limits corruption is clearly more attractive as a place in which to
do business than a nation that lacks democratic institutions, where economic activity is heavily regulated by the state,
and where corruption is rampant and the rule of law is not respected. On this basis, for example, a country like Canada is
a better place in which to do business than the Russia of Vladimir Putin (see the Country Focus: Putin’s Russia). That
being said, the reality is often more nuanced and complex. For example, China lacks democratic institutions; corruption
is widespread; property rights are not always respected; and even though the country has embraced many market-based
economic reforms, there are still large numbers of state-owned enterprises—yet many Western businesses feel that they
must invest in China. They do so despite the risks because the market is large, the nation is moving toward a Page 58
market-based system, economic growth has been strong (although growth rates there have slowed down
significantly since 2015), legal protection of property rights has been improving, and China is already the second-largest
economy in the world and could ultimately replace the United States as the world’s largest. Thus, China is becoming
increasingly attractive as a place in which to do business, and given the future growth trajectory, significant opportunities
may be lost by not investing in the country. We will explore how changes in political economy affect the attractiveness
of a nation as a place in which to do business in Chapter 3.
Key Terms
political economy, p. 40
political system, p. 41
collectivism, p. 41
socialists, p. 41
communists, p. 41
social democrats, p. 41
privatization, p. 42
individualism, p. 42
democracy, p. 43
totalitarianism, p. 43
representative democracy, p. 43
communist totalitarianism, p. 45
theocratic totalitarianism, p. 45
tribal totalitarianism, p. 46
right-wing totalitarianism, p. 46
market economy, p. 46
command economy, p. 47
legal system, p. 49
common law, p. 49
civil law system, p. 49
theocratic law system, p. 49
contract, p. 50
contract law, p. 50
United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG), p. 50
property rights, p. 51
private action, p. 51
public action, p. 51
Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), p. 54
intellectual property, p. 55
patent, p. 55
copyrights, p. 55
trademarks, p. 55
World Intellectual Property Organization, p. 55
Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property, p. 55
product safety laws, p. 57
product liability, p. 57
SUMMARY
This chapter has reviewed how the political, economic, and legal systems of countries vary. The potential benefits,
costs, and risks of doing business in a country are a function of its political, economic, and legal systems. The chapter
made the following points:
1. Political systems can be assessed according to two dimensions: the degree to which they emphasize
collectivism as opposed to individualism and the degree to which they are democratic or totalitarian.
2. Collectivism is an ideology that views the needs of society as being more important than the needs of the
individual. Collectivism translates into an advocacy for state intervention in economic activity and, in the
case of communism, a totalitarian dictatorship.
3. Individualism is an ideology that is built on an emphasis of the primacy of the individual’s freedoms in the
political, economic, and cultural realms. Individualism translates into an advocacy for democratic ideals and
free market economics.
4. Democracy and totalitarianism are at different ends of the political spectrum. In a representative democracy,
citizens periodically elect individuals to represent them, and political freedoms are guaranteed by a
constitution. In a totalitarian state, political power is monopolized by a party, group, or individual, and basic
political freedoms are denied to citizens of the state.
5. There are three broad types of economic systems: a market economy, a command economy, and a mixed
economy. In a market economy, prices are free of controls, and private ownership is predominant. In a
command economy, prices are set by central planners, productive assets are owned by the state, and private
ownership is forbidden. A mixed economy has elements of both a market economy and a command
economy.
6. Differences in the structure of law between countries can have important implications for the practice of
international business. The degree to which property rights are protected can vary dramatically from country
to country, as can product safety and product liability legislation and the nature of contract law.
Page 59
Critical Thinking and Discussion Questions
1. Free market economies stimulate greater economic growth, whereas state-directed economies stifle growth.
Discuss.
2. A democratic political system is an essential condition for sustained economic progress. Discuss.
3. What is the relationship between corruption in a country (i.e., government officials taking bribes) and
economic growth? Is corruption always bad?
4. You are the CEO of a company that has to choose between making a $100 million investment in Russia or
Poland. Both investments promise the same long-run return, so your choice is driven by risk considerations.
Assess the various risks of doing business in each of these nations. Which investment would you favor and
why?
5. Read the Management Focus “Did Walmart Violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act?” What is your
opinion? If you think it did, what do you think the consequences will be for Walmart?
global EDGE research
task globaledge.msu.edu
Use the globalEDGE™ website (globaledge.msu.edu) to complete the following exercises:
1. The definition of words and political ideas can have different meanings in different contexts worldwide. In
fact, the Freedom in the World survey published by Freedom House evaluates the state of political rights and
civil liberties around the world. Provide a description of this survey and a ranking (in terms of “freedom”) of
the world’s country leaders and laggards. What factors are taken into consideration in this survey?
2. As the chapter discusses, differences in political, economic, and legal systems have considerable impact on
the benefits, costs, and risks of doing business in various countries. The World Bank’s “Doing Business
Indicators” measure the extent of business regulations in countries around the world. Compare Brazil, Ghana,
India, New Zealand, the United States, Sweden, and Turkey in terms of how easily contracts are enforced,
how property can be registered, and how investors can be protected. Identify in which area you see the
greatest variation from one country to the next.
CLOSING CASE
Transformation in Saudi Arabia
The desert kingdom of Saudi Arabia is a rarity in the modern world, an absolute monarchy whose laws are based upon
interpretations of a religious text, the Qur’an, the holy book of Islam. Despite Saudi Arabia's adherence to an archaic
form of government, the Saudi economy has historically performed well, primarily due to the country’s position as the
world’s largest oil exporter. In 2017, the country’s GDP per capita on a purchasing power parity basis was $54,500, not
far behind the $59,800 GDP per capita of the United States.
The oil sector accounts for around 87 percent of government revenues, 42 percent of GDP, and 90 percent of export
earnings. In times of high oil prices, the Saudi government has used oil revenues to finance a sprawling government
apparatus and to subsidize energy prices, which are among the lowest in the world. In 2014, however, oil prices
collapsed, wiping out an annual government surplus. In 2014, the government deficit ballooned to 15 percent of GDP,
and it hit 20 percent of GDP in 2016, forcing the country to issue more debt and draw down its foreign exchange
reserves. Higher oil prices improved the situation in 2017 and 2018, but the crisis exposed the vulnerability of Saudi
Arabia to a fall in oil prices.
To compound matters, Saudi Arabia has a young population—some 70 percent of the population is under the age of
30—and unemployment is high at 12 percent, a combination of factors that many see as a recipe for social unrest. The
high unemployment reflects the fact that while there are jobs available outside of the government sector, most of them
are taken by low-paid foreign workers, who account for 80 percent of the labor force.
Following the death of his brother, in January 2015 Salman bin Abd al-Aziz Al Saud became King. Breaking with
tradition, the aging King quickly devolved substantial power to his son, crown prince Muhammad bin Salman Page 60
(commonly known as “MBS”). The young crown prince articulated a different vision for Saudi Arabia. Known
as Vision 2030, this calls for reducing the kingdom’s dependence on oil revenues, privatizing the state-owned oil
company Saudi Aramco, cutting energy and water subsidies, growing the private sector, investing $500 billion in a new
city called NEOM that will serve as a hub for private and foreign investment, and introducing a value-added tax in order
to close the government deficit. At the same time, the crown prince is seeking to loosen the stifling moral codes that have
limited cultural life and to promote a “moderate Islam open to the world and all religions.”
Not surprisingly, this vision has met with resistance, particularly from members of the sprawling royal family and
conservative clergy who have benefited from the status quo. To counter this, the crown prince consolidated his power,
removing members of the royal family that disagreed with him and putting his allies in positions of power. This
culminated in an unprecedented shake-up in November 2017 when scores of people, including some of the most
powerful princes in the kingdom, were arrested in a massive anticorruption sweep and jailed in, of all places, Riyadh’s
opulent Ritz Carlton.
Whether this power grab will help the crown prince achieve his goals for Saudi Arabia remains to be seen. The
government has had to backtrack on plans to reduce subsidies after strong resistance from the population, but it did
introduce a 5 percent value-added tax in January 2018.
Plans for the privatization of Saudi Aramco are under way, and the government budget deficit has been cut in half
since 2015—although stronger oil prices have had a lot to do with that. Some of the stricter laws have also been relaxed.
Women are now allowed to drive, and some banned cultural entertainments once seen as decadent, including going to the
cinema, are now allowed. In the long run though, transforming the Saudi economy will require growth in the non-oil
private sector, and that is a challenging task.
Moreover, a scandal surrounding the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khoshoggi by Saudi operatives in
Turkey in October 2018 has at the very least potentially weakened the power of the crown prince. Khoshoggi, a Saudi
citizen and U.S. resident, was a critic of the Saudi regime. Although the Saudi government has claimed that his killing
was the result of a rogue operation gone wrong, few believe that narrative. Many critics suspect that Muhammad bin
Salman was aware of plans to arrest Khoshoggi. Indeed, there is growing evidence that, back in 2017, MBS authorized a
secret campaign to silence dissenters, which included the surveillance, kidnapping, detention, and torture of Saudi
citizens. Khoshoggi was just the highest-profile case in that operation. In the wake of Khoshoggi’s murder, some foreign
investors have reconsidered their ties with the kingdom, and there is little doubt that the fallout from the scandal has
made it more difficult for the Saudis to attract foreign investment.
Bandar Algaloud/Saudi Kingdom Council/Handout/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
Sources: Asa Fitch, “Saudi Arabia Plans Record Spending in New Budget,” The Wall Street Journal, December 19, 2017; Brittany De Lea, “Saudi Citizens Plagued by New Taxes, High
Unemployment after Oil Price Collapse,” Fox Business, October 26, 2017; “Saudi Arabia’s Unprecedented Shake-up,” The Economist, November 5, 2017; Mark Mazzetti and Ben
Hubbard, “It Wasn’t Just Khashoggi: A Saudi Prince’s Brutal Drive to Crush Dissent,” The New York Times, March 17, 2019.
Case Discussion Questions
1. What long-term economic and political problems does Saudi Arabia face?
2. How might the reforms proposed by Muhammad bin Salman potentially address these problems? Who will gain
from these reforms? Who might object and push back against them?
3. Current plans for Saudi Aramco call for the state-owned oil company to be privatized. An initial public offering
(IPO) is tentatively scheduled for 2021. What are the potential benefits to Saudi Arabia of privatizing Saudi
Aramco? Is there a downside?
4. Is it morally correct for international businesses to invest in a country that denies basic rights to women?
5. Is it morally correct for international businesses to invest in an autocratic country where the current leader has
been implicated in ordering the murder of one of his critics?
Design elements: Modern textured halftone: ©VIPRESIONA/Shutterstock; globalEDGE icon: ©globalEDGE; All others: ©McGraw-Hill Education
Page 61
Endnotes
1. As we shall see, there is not a strict one-to-one correspondence between political systems and economic systems.
A. O. Hirschman, “The On-and-Off Again Connection between Political and Economic Progress,” American
Economic Review 84, no. 2 (1994), pp. 343–48.
2. For a discussion of the roots of collectivism and individualism, see H. W. Spiegel, The Growth of Economic
Thought (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1991). A discussion of collectivism and individualism can be
found in M. Friedman and R. Friedman, Free to Choose (London: Penguin Books, 1980).
3. For a classic summary of the tenets of Marxism, see A. Giddens, Capitalism and Modern Social Theory
(Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1971).
4. Smith, Adam. The Wealth of Nations. The Modern Library. Random House, Inc., 1937.
5. R. Wesson, Modern Government—Democracy and Authoritarianism, 2nd ed. (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice
Hall, 1990).
6. For a detailed but accessible elaboration of this argument, see Friedman and Friedman, Free to Choose. Also see
P. M. Romer, “The Origins of Endogenous Growth,” Journal of Economic Perspectives 8, no. 1 (1994), pp. 2–32.
7. T. W. Lippman, Understanding Islam (New York: Meridian Books, 1995).
8. “Islam’s Interest,” The Economist, January 18, 1992, pp. 33–34.
9. M. El Qorchi, “Islamic Finance Gears Up,” Finance and Development, December 2005, pp. 46–50; S. Timewell,
“Islamic Finance—Virtual Concept to Critical Mass,” The Banker, March 1, 2008, pp. 10–16; Lydia Yueh,
“Islamic Finance Growing Fast, But Can It Be More Than a Niche Market?” BBC News, April 14, 2014.
10. This
information
can
be
found
on
the
UN’s
treaty
website
at
www.uncitral.org/uncitral/en/uncitral_texts/sale_goods/1980CISG.html.
11. International Court of Arbitration, www.iccwbo.org/index_court.asp.
12. D. North, Institutions, Institutional Change, and Economic Performance (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University
Press, 1991).
13. “China’s Next Revolution,” The Economist, March 10, 2007, p. 9.
14. P. Klebnikov, “Russia’s Robber Barons,” Forbes, November 21, 1994, pp. 74–84; C. Mellow, “Russia: Making
Cash from Chaos,” Fortune, April 17, 1995, pp. 145–51; “Mr. Tatum Checks Out,” The Economist, November 9,
1996, p. 78.
15. K. van Wolferen, The Enigma of Japanese Power (New York: Vintage Books, 1990), pp. 100–105.
16. P. Bardhan, “Corruption and Development: A Review of the Issues,” Journal of Economic Literature, September
1997, pp. 1320–46.
17. Transparency International, “Global Corruption Report, 2014,” www.transparency.org, 2014.
18. Transparency International, Corruption Perceptions Index 2016, www.transparency.org.
19. J. Coolidge and S. Rose Ackerman, “High Level Rent Seeking and Corruption in African Regimes,” World Bank
policy research working paper no. 1780, June 1997; K. Murphy, A. Shleifer, and R. Vishny, “Why Is RentSeeking So Costly to Growth?” AEA Papers and Proceedings, May 1993, pp. 409–14; M. Habib and L.
Zurawicki, “Corruption and Foreign Direct Investment,” Journal of International Business Studies 33 (2002), pp.
291–307; J. E. Anderson and D. Marcouiller, “Insecurity and the Pattern of International Trade,” Review of
Economics and Statistics 84 (2002), pp. 342–52; T. S. Aidt, “Economic Analysis of Corruption: A Survey,” The
Economic Journal 113 (November 2003), pp. 632–53; D. A. Houston, “Can Corruption Ever Improve an
Economy?” Cato Institute 27 (2007), pp. 325–43; S. Rose Ackerman and B.J. Palifka, Corruption and
Government, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2016).
20. Details can be found at www.oecd.org/corruption/oecdantibriberyconvention.htm.
21. D. Stackhouse and K. Ungar, “The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act: Bribery, Corruption, Record Keeping and
More,” Indiana Lawyer, April 21, 1993.
22. For an interesting discussion of strategies for dealing with the low cost of copying and distributing digital
information, see the chapter on rights management in C. Shapiro and H. R. Varian, Information Rules (Boston:
Harvard Business School Press, 1999). Also see C. W. L. Hill, “Digital Piracy,” Asian Pacific Journal of
Management, 2007, pp. 9–25.
23. Douglass North has argued that the correct specification of intellectual property rights is one factor that lowers the
cost of doing business and, thereby, stimulates economic growth and development. See North, Institutions,
Institutional Change, and Economic Performance.
24. Business Software Alliance, “Ninth Annual BSA Global Software Piracy Study,” May 2012, www.bsa.org.
25. Business Software Alliance, “Ninth Annual BSA Global Software Piracy Study,” May 2012, www.bsa.org.
26. “Trade Tripwires,” The Economist, August 27, 1994, p. 61.
part two National Differences
Page 62
National Differences in Economic Development
3
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
After reading this chapter, you will be able to:
LO3-1
Explain what determines the level of economic development of a nation.
LO3-2
Identify the macropolitical and macroeconomic changes occurring worldwide.
LO3-3
Describe how transition economies are moving toward market-based systems.
LO3-4
Explain the implications for management practice of national difference in political economy.
Andrzej Fryda/Shutterstock
Page 63
Poland: Eastern Europe’s Economic Miracle
OPENING CASE
As the great financial crisis of 2008 and 2009 unfolded, countries across Europe were hit hard. A notable exception was Poland,
whose economy grew by 1.5 percent during 2009, while every other economy in the European Union contracted, as did the United
States’. Poland’s impressive economic performance continued after the crisis. Between 2010 and 2018, Poland’s growth rate
averaged 3.5 percent per annum, the best in Europe. This country of 38 million now has the largest economy among the postCommunist states of Eastern Europe. How did Poland achieve this?
In 1989, Poland elected its first democratic government after more than four decades of Communist rule. The Government
moved quickly to shift the economy away from the centrally planned Soviet model it had been operating under since 1945. Poland
embraced market-based economic policies and quickly implemented them through a “shock therapy” program. The country opened
its markets to international trade and foreign investment, privatized many state-owned businesses, and made it much easier for
entrepreneurs to start their own businesses. In 2004, the country joined the European Union and subsequently adopted the euro,
giving it easy access to the large consumer markets of Western Europe. All this helped transform Poland into an export powerhouse.
Exports now account for 54 percent of GDP, compared to 34 percent in 2004. By way of comparison, exports account for 30 percent
of GDP in the United Kingdom, and just 12 percent in the United States. Poland’s exports include machinery and transportation
equipment, intermediate manufactured goods, furniture, hardwood products, food, and casual clothing. As a consequence of these
changes, between 1989 and 2018 Poland recorded the highest sustained growth in the region. Living standards, measured by GDP per
capita at purchasing power parity increased 2.7 times, compared to 1.7 times in the neighboring Czech Republic.
Poland’s government has also been fiscally conservative, keeping public debt in check, not allowing it to expand during the
recession as many other countries did. This led to investor confidence in the country. Consequently, there was no large outflow of
funds during the 2008–2009 economic turmoil. This stands in stark contrast to what happened in the Baltic states, where investors
pulled money out of those economies during 2008 and 2009, driving their currencies down, raising the cost of government debt, and
precipitating a full-blown economic crisis that required the IMF and EU to step in with financial assistance.
A tight monetary squeeze in the early 2000s, which was designed to curb inflation and ease Poland’s entry into the European
Union, headed off the asset price bubble, particularly surging home prices that hurt so many other economies around the world.
Ironically, the Polish government had been criticized for its tight monetary policy earlier in the decade, but in 2008 and 2009 it served
the country well. Post 2009, the Government has continued to adhere to a fairly conservative management of the economy. In 2018,
the Government deficit as a percentage of GDP was 1.6 percent, safely below the 3 percent European Union requirement for members
of the euro zone. As of 2018, economic growth remains strong, inflation is low at under 2 percent, and the unemployment rate of 3.7
percent is the lowest since 1989.
None of this is to say that Poland is a model state. Looking forward, the country faces several significant economic challenges.
First, the work force is aging. Poland faces a shortage of labor in the coming years. For Poland to continue to expand economically, it
needs more immigration. Despite some anti-immigration sentiment in the country, the Polish government has been issuing
substantially more work permits to immigrants, the majority of whom have come from the Ukraine. Second, the Government recently
lowered the retirement age (which exacerbates the labor shortage) and raised social security payments, moves which could create
fiscal problems down the road. Third, despite substantial privatization after 1990, Poland still has a mixed economy with several
major state-owned enterprises. The government controls the two largest banks, the biggest insurer, and two defense groups, as well as
important energy, mining, and petrochemical companies. Political constraints and ongoing interference mean that these enterprises
are not always as well managed as they might be and begs the question of whether further privatization is warranted.
Sources: Daniel Tilles, “Poland’s Anti-Immigration Government Is Overseeing one of Europe’s Biggest Waves of Immigration,” Notes From Poland, October 3, 2018; J.
Rostowski, “The Secret of Poland’s Success,” The Wall Street Journal, February 1, 2010, p. 15; “Not Like the Neighbors,” The Economist, April 25, 2009, p. 55; “Ahead of
Elections, Poland’s Ruling Party Offers Huge Handouts,” The Economist, February 28, 2019; “Poland’s State Owned Giants Cope with Unprecedented Turnover,” The
Economist, November 29, 2018; World Bank, World Development Indicators Online, Accessed March 22, 2019.
Page 64
Introduction
In Chapter 2, we described how countries differ with regard to their political systems, economic systems, and legal
systems. In this chapter, we build on this material to explain how these differences influence the level of economic
development of a nation and, thus, how attractive it is as a place for doing business. We also look at how economic,
political, and legal systems are changing around the world and what the implications of this are for the future rate of
economic development of nations and regions. The past three decades have seen a general move toward more democratic
forms of government, market-based economic reforms, and adoption of legal systems that better enforce property rights.
Taken together, these trends have helped foster greater economic development around the world and have created a more
favorable environment for international business. In the final section of this chapter, we pull all this material together to
explore how differences in political, economic, and legal institutions affect the benefits, costs, and risks of doing
business in different nations.
The opening case, which looks at the performance of the Polish economy since 1990, highlights some of these
issues. Over the last 30 years Poland has had one of the best performing economies in Europe. This achievement was due
to a number of positive factors, including the adoption of a democratic political system, market-based economic reforms,
privatization of state-owned enterprises, the reduction of barriers to private enterprise formation, and pro-trade policies,
including joining the World Trade Organization and the European Union. As a consequence of these changes, today
Poland has a dynamic export-led economy that has substantially raised real living standards for its population. However,
Poland now faces labor shortages, which could constrain its economic growth going forward. To continue to grow, it
may have to expand its labor force through higher immigration. In recognition of this, its government has recently issued
more work permits to immigrants from its troubled neighbor, the Ukraine.
Differences in Economic Development
LO3-1
Explain what determines the level of economic development of a nation.
Different countries have dramatically different levels of economic development. One common measure of economic
development is a country’s gross national income (GNI) per head of population. GNI is regarded as a yardstick for the
economic activity of a country; it measures the total annual income received by residents of a nation. Map 3.1
summarizes the GNI per capita of the world’s nations in 2018. As can be seen, countries such as Japan, Sweden,
Switzerland, the United States, and Australia are among the richest on this measure, whereas the large developing
countries of China and India are significantly poorer. Japan, for example, had a 2018 GNI per capita of $41,340, but
China achieved only $9,470 and India just $2,020.1
MAP 3.1 GNI per capita, 2018.
GNI per person figures can be misleading because they don’t consider differences in the cost of living. For
example, although the 2018 GNI per capita of Switzerland at $83,580 exceeded that of the United States by a wide
margin, the higher cost of living in Switzerland meant that U.S. citizens could actually afford almost as many goods and
services as the average Swiss citizen. To account for differences in the cost of living, one can adjust GNI per capita by
purchasing power. Referred to as a purchasing power parity (PPP) adjustment, it allows a more direct comparison of
living standards in different countries. The base for the adjustment is the cost of living in the United States. The PPP for
different countries is then adjusted (up or down) depending on whether the cost of living is lower or higher than in the
United States. For example, in 2018 the GNI per capita for China was $9,470 but the PPP per capita was $18,140,
suggesting that the cost of living was lower in China and that $9,470 in China would buy as much as $18,140 in the
United States. Table 3.1 gives the GNI per capita measured at PPP in 2018 for a selection of countries, along with their
GNI per capita, their average annual growth rate in gross domestic product (GDP) from 2009 to 2018, and the overall
size of their economy (measured by GDP). Map 3.2 summarizes the GNI PPP per capita in 2018 for the nations of the
world.
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TABLE 3.1 Economic Data for Select Countries
S o u r c e: Wor l dD
MAP 3.2 GNI PPP per capita, 2018.
As can be seen, there are striking differences in the standards of living among countries. Table 3.1 suggests the
average Indian citizen can afford to consume only about 12 percent of the goods and services consumed by the average
U.S. citizen on a PPP basis. Given this, we might conclude that despite having a population of 1.2 billion, India is
unlikely to be a very lucrative market for the consumer products produced by many Western international businesses.
However, this would be incorrect because India has a fairly wealthy middle class of close to 250 million people, despite
its large number of poor citizens. In absolute terms, the Indian economy now rivals that of Russia.
Did You Know?
Did you know that by 2050 India may be the second largest economy in the world and Indonesia the fourth?
Visit your instructor’s Connect® course and click on your eBook or SmartBook® to view a short video explanation from
the authors.
To complicate matters, in many countries the “official” figures do not tell the entire story. Large amounts of
economic activity may be in the form of unrecorded cash transactions or barter agreements. People engage in such
transactions to avoid paying taxes, and although the share of total economic activity accounted for by such transactions
may be small in developed economies such as the United States, in some countries (India being an example), they are
reportedly very significant. Known as the black economy or shadow economy, estimates suggest that in India it has been
as high as 50 percent of GDP, which implies that the Indian economy may be half as big again as the figures Page 67
reported in Table 3.1. Estimates produced by the European Union suggest that the shadow economy accounted
for between 10 and 12 percent of GDP in the United Kingdom and France but 21 percent in Italy and as much as 23
percent in Greece.2
The GNI and PPP data give a static picture of development. They tell us, for example, that China is poorer than the
United States, but they do not tell us if China is closing the gap. To assess this, we have to look at the economic growth
rates achieved by countries. Table 3.1 gives the rate of growth in gross domestic product (GDP) per capita achieved by a
number of countries between 2009 and 2018. Map 3.3 summarizes the annual average percentage growth rate in GDP
from 2009 to 2018. Although countries such as China and India are currently relatively poor, their economies are already
large in absolute terms and growing far more rapidly than those of many advanced nations. They are already huge
markets for the products of international businesses. In 2010, China overtook Japan to become the second-largest
economy in the world after the United States. Indeed, if both China and the United States maintain their current
economic growth rates, China will become the world’s largest economy sometime during the next decade. On current
trends, India too will be among the largest economies in the world. Given that potential, many international Page 68
businesses are trying to establish a strong presence in these markets.
MAP 3.3 Average annual growth rate in GDP (%), 2009–2018.
global EDGE COUNTRY COMPARATOR
The “Country Comparator” tool on globalEDGE™ (globaledge.msu.edu/comparator) includes data from as early as 1960 to the most
recent year. Using this tool, it is easy to compare countries across a variety of macro variables to better understand the economic changes
occurring in countries. As related to Chapter 3, the globalEDGE™ Country Comparator tool is an effective way to statistically get an
overview of the political economy and economic development by country worldwide. Comparisons of up to 20 countries at a time can be
made in table format. Sometimes we talk about the BRIC countries when referring to Brazil, Russia, India, and China—in essence, we
broadly classify them as “superstar” emerging markets, but are they really that similar? Using the Country Comparator tool on
globalEDGE, we find that the GDP adjusted for purchasing power parity is by far the greatest in Russia. Where do you think Brazil,
India, and China fall on the GDP PPP scale?
BROADER CONCEPTIONS OF DEVELOPMENT: AMARTYA SEN
The Nobel Prize–winning economist Amartya Sen has argued that development should be assessed less by material
output measures such as GNI per capita and more by the capabilities and opportunities that people enjoy.3 According to
Sen, development should be seen as a process of expanding the real freedoms that people experience. Hence,
development requires the removal of major impediments to freedom: poverty as well as tyranny, poor economic
opportunities as well as systematic social deprivation, and neglect of public facilities as well as the intolerance of
repressive states. In Sen’s view, development is not just an economic process but a political one too, and to succeed
requires the “democratization” of political communities to give citizens a voice in the important decisions made for the
community. This perspective leads Sen to emphasize basic health care, especially for children, and basic education,
especially for women. Not only are these factors desirable for their instrumental value in helping achieve higher income
levels, but they are also beneficial in their own right. People cannot develop their capabilities if they are chronically ill or
woefully ignorant.
Sen’s influential thesis has been picked up by the United Nations, which has developed the Human Development
Index (HDI) to measure the quality of human life in different nations. The HDI is based on three measures: life
expectancy at birth (a function of health care); educational attainment (measured by a combination of the adult literacy
rate and enrollment in primary, secondary, and tertiary education); and whether average incomes, based on PPP
estimates, are sufficient to meet the basic needs of life in a country (adequate food, shelter, and health care). As such, the
HDI comes much closer to Sen’s conception of how development should be measured than narrow economic measures
such as GNI per capita—although Sen’s thesis suggests that political freedoms should also be included in the index, and
they are not. The HDI is scaled from 0 to 1. Countries scoring less than 0.5 are classified as having low human
development (the quality of life is poor), those scoring from 0.5 to 0.8 are classified as having medium human
development, and those that score above 0.8 are classified as having high human development. Map 3.4 summarizes the
HDI scores for 2017, the most recent year for which data are available.
TEST PREP
Use SmartBook to help retain what you have learned. Access your Instructor’s Connect course to check out SmartBook
or go to learnsmartadvantage.com for help.
Page 69
MAP 3.4 Human Development Index, 2017.
Political Economy and Economic Progress
It is often argued that a country’s economic development is a function of its economic and political systems. What then
is the nature of the relationship between political economy and economic progress? Despite the long debate over this
question among academics and policymakers, it is not possible to give an unambiguous answer. However, it is possible
to untangle the main threads of the arguments and make a few generalizations as to the nature of the relationship between
political economy and economic progress.
INNOVATION AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP ARE THE ENGINES OF GROWTH
There is substantial agreement among economists that innovation and entrepreneurial activity are the engines of long-run
economic growth.4 Those who make this argument define innovation broadly to include not just new products, but also
new processes, new organizations, new management practices, and new strategies. Thus, Uber’s strategy of letting riders
hail a cab using a smartphone application can be seen as an innovation because it was the first company to pursue this
strategy in its industry. Similarly, the development of mass-market online retailing by Amazon.com can be seen as an
innovation. Innovation and entrepreneurial activity help increase economic activity by creating new products and
markets that did not previously exist. Moreover, innovations in production and business processes lead to an Page 70
increase in the productivity of labor and capital, which further boosts economic growth rates.5
Innovation is also seen as the product of entrepreneurial activity. Often, entrepreneurs first commercialize
innovative new products and processes, and entrepreneurial activity provides much of the dynamism in an economy. For
example, the U.S. economy has benefited greatly from a high level of entrepreneurial activity, which has resulted in
rapid innovation in products and process. Firms such as Apple, Google, Facebook, Amazon, Dell, Microsoft, Oracle, and
Uber were all founded by entrepreneurial individuals to exploit new technology. All these firms created significant
economic value and boosted productivity by helping commercialize innovations in products and processes. Thus, we can
conclude that if a country’s economy is to sustain long-run economic growth, the business environment must be
conducive to the consistent production of product and process innovations and to entrepreneurial activity.
INNOVATION AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP REQUIRE A MARKET ECONOMY
This leads logically to a further question: What is required for the business environment of a country to be conducive to
innovation and entrepreneurial activity? Those who have considered this issue highlight the advantages of a market
economy.6 It has been argued that the economic freedom associated with a market economy creates greater incentives
for innovation and entrepreneurship than either a planned or a mixed economy. In a market economy, any individual who
has an innovative idea is free to try to make money out of that idea by starting a business (by engaging in entrepreneurial
activity). Similarly, existing businesses are free to improve their operations through innovation. To the extent that they
are successful, both individual entrepreneurs and established businesses can reap rewards in the form of high profits.
Thus, market economies contain enormous incentives to develop innovations.
In a planned economy, the state owns all means of production. Consequently, entrepreneurial individuals have few
economic incentives to develop valuable new innovations because it is the state, rather than the individual, that captures
most of the gains. The lack of economic freedom and incentives for innovation was probably a main factor in the
economic stagnation of many former communist states and led ultimately to their collapse at the end of the 1980s.
Similar stagnation occurred in many mixed economies in those sectors where the state had a monopoly (such as coal
mining and telecommunications in Great Britain). This stagnation provided the impetus for the widespread privatization
of state-owned enterprises that we witnessed in many mixed economies during the mid-1980s and that is still going on
today (privatization refers to the process of selling state-owned enterprises to private investors; see Chapter 2 for details).
A study of 102 countries over a 20-year period provided evidence of a strong relationship between economic
freedom (as provided by a market economy) and economic growth.7 The study found that the more economic freedom a
country had between 1975 and 1995, the more economic growth it achieved and the richer its citizens became. The six
countries that had persistently high ratings of economic freedom from 1975 to 1995 (Hong Kong, Switzerland,
Singapore, the United States, Canada, and Germany) were also all in the top 10 in terms of economic growth rates. In
contrast, no country with persistently low economic freedom achieved a respectable growth rate. In the 16 countries for
which the index of economic freedom declined the most during 1975 to 1995, gross domestic product fell at an annual
rate of 0.6 percent. Other studies have reached broadly similar conclusions.
INNOVATION AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP REQUIRE STRONG PROPERTY
RIGHTS
Strong legal protection of property rights is another requirement for a business environment to be conducive to
innovation, entrepreneurial activity, and hence economic growth.8 Both individuals and businesses must be given the
opportunity to profit from innovative ideas. Without strong property rights protection, businesses and individuals run the
risk that the profits from their innovative efforts will be expropriated, either by criminal elements or by the state. The
state can expropriate the profits from innovation through legal means, such as excessive taxation, or through illegal
means, such as demands from state bureaucrats for kickbacks in return for granting an individual or firm a license to do
business in a certain area (i.e., corruption). According to the Nobel Prize–winning economist Douglass North, Page 71
throughout history many governments have displayed a tendency to engage in such behavior.9 Inadequately
enforced property rights reduce the incentives for innovation and entrepreneurial activity—because the profits from such
acti vi t y are “st olen”—
and hence r educe t he r ate of econom
ic gr owth.
The influential Peruvian development economist Hernando de Soto has argued that much of the developing world
will fail to reap the benefits of capitalism until property rights are better defined and protected.10 De Soto’s arguments
are interesting because he says the key problem is not the risk of expropriation but the chronic inability of property
owners to establish legal title to the property they own. As an example of the scale of the problem, he cites the situation
in Haiti, where individuals must take 176 steps over 19 years to own land legally. Because most property in poor
countries is informally “owned,” the absence of legal proof of ownership means that property holders cannot convert
their assets into capital, which could then be used to finance business ventures. Banks will not lend money to the poor to
start businesses because the poor possess no proof that they own property, such as farmland, that can be used as
collateral for a loan. By de Soto’s calculations, the total value of real estate held by the poor in third-world and former
communist states amounted to more than $9.3 trillion in 2000. If those assets could be converted into capital, the result
could be an economic revolution that would allow the poor to bootstrap their way out of poverty. Interestingly enough,
the Chinese seem to have taken de Soto’s arguments to heart. Despite still being nominally a communist country, in
October 2007 the government passed a law that gave private property owners the same rights as the state, which
significantly improved the rights of urban and rural landowners to the land that they use (see the accompanying Country
Focus).
THE REQUIRED POLITICAL SYSTEM
Much debate surrounds which kind of political system best achieves a functioning market economy with strong
protection for property rights.11 People in the West tend to associate a representative democracy with a market economic
system, strong property rights protection, and economic progress. Building on this, we tend to argue that democracy is
good for growth. However, some totalitarian regimes have fostered a market economy and strong property rights
protection and have experienced rapid economic growth. Five of the fastest-growing economies of the past 40 years—
China, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, and Hong Kong—had one thing in common at the start of their economic
growth: undemocratic governments. At the same time, countries with stable democratic governments, such as India,
experienced sluggish economic growth for long periods. In 1992, Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore’s leader for many years,
told an audience, “I do not believe that democracy necessarily leads to development. I believe that a country needs to
develop discipline more than democracy. The exuberance of democracy leads to undisciplined and disorderly conduct
which is inimical to development.”12
However, those who argue for the value of a totalitarian regime miss an important point: If dictators made countries
rich, then much of Africa, Asia, and Latin America should have been growing rapidly during 1960 to 1990, and this was
not the case. Only a totalitarian regime that is committed to a market system and strong protection of property rights is
capable of promoting economic growth. Also, there is no guarantee that a dictatorship will continue to pursue such
progressive policies. Dictators are rarely benevolent. Many are tempted to use the apparatus of the state to further their
own private ends, violating property rights and stalling economic growth. Given this, it seems likely that democratic
regimes are far more conducive to long-term economic growth than are dictatorships, even benevolent ones. Only in a
well-functioning, mature democracy are property rights truly secure.13 Nor should we forget Amartya Sen’s arguments
reviewed earlier. Totalitarian states, by limiting human freedom, also suppress human development and therefore are
detrimental to progress.
ECONOMIC PROGRESS BEGETS DEMOCRACY
While it is possible to argue that democracy is not a necessary precondition for a market economy in which property
rights are protected, subsequent economic growth often leads to establishment of a democratic regime. Several Page 72
of the fastest-growing Asian economies adopted more democratic governments during the past three decades,
including South Korea and Taiwan. Thus, although democracy may not always be the cause of initial economic progress,
it seems to be one consequence of that progress.
COUNTRY FOCUS
Property Rights in China
On October 1, 2007, a new property law took effect in China, granting rural and urban landholders far more secure property rights.
The law was a much-needed response to how China’s economy has changed over the past 30 years as it transitions from a centrally
planned system to a more dynamic market-based economy where two-thirds of economic activity is in the hands of private
enterprises.
Although all land in China still technically belongs to the state—an ideological necessity in a country where the government
still claims to be guided by Marxism—urban landholders had been granted 40- to 70-year leases to use the land, while rural
farmers had 30-year leases. However, the lack of legal title meant that landholders were at the whim of the state. Large-scale
appropriation of rural land for housing and factory construction had rendered millions of farmers landless. Many were given little
or no compensation, and they drifted to the cities where they added to a growing underclass. In both urban and rural areas,
property and land disputes had become a leading cause of social unrest. According to government sources, in 2006 there were
about 23,000 “mass incidents” of social unrest in China, many related to disputes over property rights.
The 2007 law, which was 14 years in gestation due to a rearguard action fought by left-wing Communist Party activists who
objected to it on ideological grounds, gives urban and rural land users the right to automatic renewal of their leases after the
expiration of the 30- to 70-year terms. In addition, the law requires that land users be fairly compensated if the land is required for
other purposes, and it gives individuals the same legal protection for their property as the state. Taken together with a 2004 change
in China’s constitution, which stated that private property “was not to be encroached upon,” the new law significantly strengthens
property rights in China.
Nevertheless, the law has its limitations; most notably, it still falls short of giving peasants marketable ownership rights to the
land they farm. If they could sell their land, tens of millions of underemployed farmers might find more productive work
elsewhere. Those who stayed could acquire bigger landholdings that could be used more efficiently. Also, farmers might be able to
use their landholdings as security against which they could borrow funds for investments to boost productivity.
Recognizing such limitations, in 2016 the ruling Communist Party released a set of guidelines for further shoring up property
rights protection, including better legal enforcement of property rights. There is no doubt that additional protection is needed.
Chinese firms and residents have continued to suffer under poor property protections, facing eviction to make way for new
developments and facing fierce competition as patents and copyrights are repeatedly violated. Whether these new guidelines will
improve matters, however, remains to be seen.
Sources: “China’s Next Revolution—Property Rights in China,” The Economist, March 10, 2007, p. 11; “Caught between the Right and Left,” The Economist, March 10,
2007, pp. 25–27; Z. Keliang and L. Ping, “Rural Land Rights under the PRC Property Law,” China Law and Practice, November 2007, pp. 10–15; and Sara Hsu, “China Is
Finally Improving Property Rights Protection,” Forbes, November 30, 2016.
A strong belief that economic progress leads to adoption of a democratic regime underlies the fairly permissive
attitude that many Western governments have adopted toward human rights violations in China. Although China has a
totalitarian government in which human rights are violated, many Western countries have been hesitant to criticize the
country too much for fear that this might hamper the country’s march toward a free market system. The belief is that
once China has a free market system, greater individual freedoms and democracy will follow. Whether this optimistic
vision comes to pass remains to be seen.
GEOGRAPHY, EDUCATION, DEMOGRAPHICS, AND ECONOMIC
DEVELOPMENT
While a country’s political and economic systems are probably the big engine driving its rate of economic development,
other factors are also important. One that has received attention is geography.14 But the belief that geography Page 73
can influence economic policy, and hence economic growth rates, goes back to Adam Smith. The influential
economist Jeffrey Sachs argues that
throughout history, coastal states, with their long engagements in international trade, have been more supportive of market
institutions than landlocked states, which have tended to organize themselves as hierarchical (and often militarised) societies.
Mountainous states, as a result of physical isolation, have often neglected market-based trade. Temperate climes have generally
supported higher densities of population and thus a more extensive division of labour than tropical regions.15
Sachs’s point is that by virtue of favorable geography, certain societies are more likely to engage in trade than
others and are thus more likely to be open to and develop market-based economic systems, which in turn promotes faster
economic growth. He also argues that, irrespective of the economic and political institutions a country adopts, adverse
geographic conditions—such as the high rate of disease, poor soils, and hostile climate that afflict many tropical
countries—can have a negative impact on development. Together with colleagues at Harvard’s Institute for International
Development, Sachs tested for the impact of geography on a country’s economic growth rate between 1965 and 1990. He
found that landlocked countries grew more slowly than coastal economies and that being entirely landlocked reduced a
country’s growth rate by roughly 0.7 percent per year. He also found that tropical countries grew 1.3 percent more
slowly each year than countries in the temperate zone.
Education emerges as another important determinant of economic development (a point that Amartya Sen
emphasizes). The general assertion is that nations that invest more in education will have higher growth rates because an
educated population is a more productive population. Anecdotal comparisons suggest this is true. In 1960, Pakistanis and
South Koreans were on equal footing economically. However, just 30 percent of Pakistani children were enrolled in
primary schools, while 94 percent of South Koreans were. By the mid-1980s, South Korea’s GNP per person was three
times that of Pakistan.16 A survey of 14 statistical studies that looked at the relationship between a country’s investment
in education and its subsequent growth rates concluded investment in education did have a positive and statistically
significant impact on a country’s rate of economic growth.17 Similarly, the work by Sachs discussed earlier suggests that
investments in education help explain why some countries in Southeast Asia, such as Indonesia, Malaysia, and
Singapore, have been able to overcome the disadvantages associated with their tropical geography and grow far more
rapidly than tropical nations in Africa and Latin America.
Economists also argue that demographic forces are an important determinant of a country’s economic growth rate.
Assuming a country has institutions in place that promote entrepreneurship and innovation, a country with a young and
growing population has greater growth potential than one with an aging stagnant population.18 A growing population
increases the supply of labor. Younger workers also tend to consume more than older retirees, which boosts demand for
goods and services. Moreover, an aging population implies that fewer workers are supporting more retirees, which can
stress government finances. In the 1970s and 1980s, Japan had one of the most dynamic economies in the world, but low
birthrates and an aging population have held back economic growth since the turn of the century. More generally, going
forward, low birthrates and an aging population could potentially cause labor shortages and slower economic growth in a
number of other major economies, including China, Germany, and the United States. One way around this is for
countries with an aging population to permit higher immigration. For example, as we saw in the opening case, Poland
has allowed for increased immigration from the Ukraine, largely as a strategy for coping with labor shortages due to an
aging population. But immigration can bring political problems and is resisted in a number of countries (Japan, for
example, has tight restrictions on immigration despite predictions that the population could fall by 30 percent over the
next 40 years due to a very low birthrate).
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Page 74
States in Transition
LO3-2
Identify the macropolitical and macroeconomic changes occurring worldwide.
The political economy of many of the world’s nation-states has changed radically since the late 1980s. Three trends have
been evident. First, during the late 1980s and early 1990s, a wave of democratic revolutions swept the world. Totalitarian
governments fell and were replaced by democratically elected governments that were typically more committed to free
market capitalism than their predecessors had been. Second, over the same period, there has been a move away from
centrally planned and mixed economies and toward a more free market economic model. Third, and counter to the two
prior trends, since 2005 there has been a shift back toward greater authoritarianism in some nations, and there are some
signs that certain nations may be retreating from the free market model, particularly in the area of international trade
where protectionism is on the rise again.
THE SPREAD OF DEMOCRACY
One notable development of the last 30 years has been the spread of democratic political institutions (and, by extension,
the decline of totalitarianism). Map 3.5 reports on the extent of totalitarianism in the world as determined by Freedom
House.19 This map charts political freedom in 2019, grouping countries into three broad groupings: free, partly Page 75
free, and not free. In “free” countries, citizens enjoy a high degree of political and civil freedoms. “Partly free”
countries are characterized by some restrictions on political rights and civil liberties, often in the context of corruption,
weak rule of law, ethnic strife, or civil war. In “not free” countries, the political process is tightly controlled and basic
freedoms are denied.
MAP 3.5 Freedom in the world, 2019.
Freedom House classified some 86 countries as free in 2019, accounting for about 44 percent of the world’s
nations. These countries respect a broad range of political rights. Another 59 countries, accounting for 30 percent of the
world’s nations, were classified as partly free, while 51 countries representing approximately 26 percent of the world’s
nations were classified as not free.
Voters wait in a queue in front of the election center in the city of Lagos, Nigeria.
Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
Many of the newer democracies are to be found in eastern Europe and Latin America, although there also have
been notable gains in Africa during this time, including South Africa and Nigeria. Entrants into the ranks of the world’s
democracies during the last 30 years include Mexico, which held its first fully free and fair presidential election in 2000
after free and fair parliamentary and state elections in 1997 and 1998; Senegal, where free and fair presidential elections
led to a peaceful transfer of power; and Nigeria, where in 2015 for the first time the opposition won an election and there
was a peaceful transfer of power.
Three main reasons account for the spread of democracy.20 First, many totalitarian regimes failed to deliver
economic progress to the vast bulk of their populations. The collapse of communism in eastern Europe, for example, was
precipitated by the growing gulf between the vibrant and wealthy economies of the West and the stagnant economies of
the communist East. In looking for alternatives to the socialist model, the populations of these countries could not have
failed to notice that most of the world’s strongest economies were governed by representative democracies. Today, the
economic success of many of the newer democracies—such as Poland and the Czech Republic in the former communist
bloc, the Philippines and Taiwan in Asia, and Chile in Latin America—has strengthened the case for democracy as a key
component of successful economic advancement.
Second, new information and communication technologies—including satellite television, desktop publishing, and,
most important, the Internet and associated social media—have reduced a state’s ability to control access to uncensored
information. These technologies have created new conduits for the spread of democratic ideals and information from free
societies. Today, the Internet is allowing democratic ideals to penetrate closed societies as never before.21 Young people
who utilized Facebook and Twitter to reach large numbers of people very quickly and coordinate their actions organized
the demonstrations in 2011 that led to the overthrow of the Egyptian government.
Third, in many countries, economic advances have led to the emergence of increasingly prosperous middle and
working classes that have pushed for democratic reforms. This was certainly a factor in the democratic transformation of
South Korea. Entrepreneurs and other business leaders, eager to protect their property rights and ensure the dispassionate
enforcement of contracts, are another force pressing for more accountable and open government.
Although democratic institutions became more widespread following the democratic revolutions of the late 1980s,
Freedom House notes that, since 2005, there has been a drift back toward more authoritarian modes of government in
many nations. Between 1988 and 2005 the share of countries ranked “not free” dropped from 37 percent to 23 percent,
and the share of countries ranked as “free” increased from 36 percent to 46 percent. However, from 2005 through to
2019, the share of “not free” countries rose to 26 percent, while the share of countries ranked as “free” dropped to 44
percent. Some 23 countries have suffered a negative status change since 2005. Many of these countries had Page 76
benefited from the wave of democracy that swept around the world in 1988–1990, but have since backtracked
toward a more authoritarian status. In general, in these nations, elections have been compromised, civil liberties
including freedom of expression and association have been restricted, the independent press has been attacked or
suppressed, and opposition political parties have been restricted.
Consider Turkey, where Recep Tayyip Erdogan was elected president in 2014. Erdogan used a failed coup attempt
in 2016 to tighten his control over the country and consolidate power in the presidency. Opposition politicians have been
arrested and imprisoned, often on dubious charges. There have been frequent arrests and convictions of journalists and
social media users who were critical of the government. There has also been a sharp rise in the number of people charged
under a century-old archaic law that makes it a crime to “insult the president.” The number of prosecutions for this
“crime” increased from almost nothing to over 6,000 in 2017. In 2017, Erdogan called and won a referendum on
amending the constitution that extended the power of the President, allowing him to appoint judges and cabinet
members, form and regulate ministries, draft budgets, and appoint or remove civil servants, mostly without parliamentary
approval. Erdogan won the referendum by a narrow margin: 51.4 percent to 48.6 percent. He can now run for three more
terms. While it is true that this extended power was given to Erdogan in a democratic referendum, critics argue that
Turkey has now moved toward “one-man rule,” and that the Turks have in essence voted away their democracy by a
narrow margin, allowing the ruling majority to entrench its position and marginalize any opposition. Freedom House
now ranks Turkey as “not free.”
As in Turkey, authoritarianism has been gaining ground in several other countries where political and civil liberties
h ave be en pr ogr ess ivel y l i m
i t ed i n r ecent year s, i ncl udi ng Russia, Ukrai ne, Indonesia, Ecuador , and Venezuela. An
increasingly autocratic Russia annexed the Crimea region from the Ukraine in 2014 and has actively supported proRussi an r ebels in eastern Ukraine. Li bya, wh ere t her e was hop e t hat a democr acy might be est abl i shed, appears t o have
slipped into anarchy. In Egypt, after a brief flirtation with democracy, the military stepped in, removing the government
of Mohamed Morsi, after Morsi and his political movement, the Muslim Brotherhood, exhibited its own authoritarian
t endenc i es. The m
i lit ary - backed government, howe ver , has al so acted i n an aut horit ar ian manner, e f fecti vely rever sing
much of the progress that occurred after the revolution of 2011. Of note, Freedom House also expressed concerns that
u nder the l eadershi p of Donal d Tr ump, Am
er i ca has stepped back fr omi ts tr adi t i o na l role of pr omot i ng democracy and
human rights around the world, a development that it views with some alarm, because pressure from the United States
has historically helped to spread democratic ideals.22
THE NEW WORLD ORDER AND GLOBAL TERRORISM
The end of the Cold War and the “new world order” that followed the collapse of communism in eastern Europe and the
former Soviet Union, taken together with the demise of many authoritarian regimes in Latin America, gave rise to
intense speculation about the future shape of global geopolitics. In an influential book, 25 years ago author Francis
Fukuyama argued, “We may be witnessing . . . the end of history as such: that is, the end point of mankind’s ideological
evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government.”23 Fukuyama
went on to argue that the war of ideas may be at an end and that liberal democracy has triumphed.
Many questioned Fukuyama’s vision of a more harmonious world dominated by a universal civilization
characterized by democratic regimes and free market capitalism. In a controversial book, the late influential political
scientist Samuel Huntington argued there is no “universal” civilization based on widespread acceptance of Western
liberal democratic ideals.24 Huntington maintained that while many societies may be modernizing—they are adopting
the material paraphernalia of the modern world, from automobiles and Facebook to Coca-Cola and smartphones Page 77
—they are not becoming more Western. On the contrary, Huntington theorized that modernization in nonWestern societies can result in a retreat toward the traditional, such as the resurgence of Islam in many traditionally
Muslim societies. He wrote,
The Islamic resurgence is both a product of and an effort to come to grips with modernization. Its underlying causes are those
generally responsible for indigenization trends in non-Western societies: urbanization, social mobilization, higher levels of
literacy and education, intensified communication and media consumption, and expanded interaction with Western and other
cultures. These developments undermine traditional village and clan ties and create alienation and an identity crisis. Islamist
symbols, commitments, and beliefs meet these psychological needs, and Islamist welfare organizations, the social, cultural, and
economic needs of Muslims caught in the process of modernization. Muslims feel a need to return to Islamic ideas, practices, and
institutions to provide the compass and the motor of modernization.25
Thus, the rise of Islamic fundamentalism is portrayed as a response to the alienation produced by modernization.
In contrast to Fukuyama, Huntington envisioned a world split into different civilizations, each of which has its own
value systems and ideology. Huntington predicted conflict between the West and Islam and between the West and China.
While some commentators originally dismissed Huntington’s thesis, in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on the United
States on September 11, 2001, Huntington’s views received new attention. The dramatic rise of the Islamic State (ISIS)
in war-torn Syria and neighboring Iraq during 2014–2015 drew further attention to Huntington’s thesis, as has the
growing penchant for ISIS to engage in terrorist acts outside the Middle East, as in Paris in 2015.
If Huntington’s views are even partly correct, they have important implications for international business. They
suggest many countries may be difficult places in which to do business, either because they are shot through with violent
conflicts or because they are part of a civilization that is in conflict with an enterprise’s home country. Huntington’s
views are speculative and controversial. More likely than his predictions coming to pass is the evolution of a global
political system that is positioned somewhere between Fukuyama’s universal global civilization based on liberal
democratic ideals and Huntington’s vision of a fractured world. That would still be a world, however, in which
geopolitical forces limit the ability of business enterprises to operate in certain foreign countries.
As for terrorism, in Huntington’s thesis, global terrorism is a product of the tension between civilizations and the
clash of value systems and ideology. The terror attacks undertaken by al-Qaeda and ISIS are consistent with this view.
Others point to terrorism’s roots in long-standing conflicts that seem to defy political resolution—the Palestinian,
Kashmir, and Northern Ireland conflicts being obvious examples. It is also true that much of the terrorism perpetrated by
al-Qaeda affiliates in Iraq during the 2000s and more recently by ISIS in Iraq and Syria can be understood in part as a
struggle between radicalized Sunni and Shia factions within Islam. Moreover, a substantial amount of terrorist activity in
some parts of the world, such as Colombia, has been interwoven with the illegal drug trade. As former U.S. Secretary of
State Colin Powell has maintained, terrorism represents one of the major threats to world peace and economic progress in
the twenty-first century.26
THE SPREAD OF MARKET-BASED SYSTEMS
Paralleling the spread of democracy since the 1980s has been the transformation from centrally planned command
economies to market-based economies. More than 30 countries that were in the former Soviet Union or the eastern
European communist bloc have changed their economic systems. A complete list of countries where change is now
occurring also would include Asian states such as China and Vietnam, as well as African countries such as Page 78
Angola, Ethiopia, and Mozambique.27 There has been a similar shift away from a mixed economy. Many states
in Asia, Latin America, and Western Europe have sold state-owned businesses to private investors (privatization) and
deregulated their economies to promote greater competition.
ISIS fighters are a visible symbol of the rise of global terrorism in the post Cold War world.
Medyan Dairieh/ZUMA Press, Inc./Alamy Stock Photo
The rationale for economic transformation has been the same the world over. In general, command and mixed
economies failed to deliver the kind of sustained economic performance that was achieved by countries adopting marketbased systems, such as the United States, Switzerland, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. As a consequence, even more states
have gravitated toward the market-based model.
Map 3.6, based on data from the Heritage Foundation, a politically conservative U.S. research foundation, gives
some idea of the degree to which the world has shifted toward market-based economic systems. The Heritage
Foundation’s index of economic freedom is based on 10 indicators, including the extent to which the government
intervenes in the economy, trade policy, the degree to which property rights are protected, foreign investment
regulations, taxation rules, freedom from corruption, and labor freedom. A country can score between 100 (freest) and 0
(least free) on each of these indicators. The higher a country’s average score across all 10 indicators, the more closely its
economy represents the pure market model.
MAP 3.6 Index of economic freedom, 2019.
Source: “Interactive Heat Map.” The Heritage Foundation, 2019. www.heritage.org/index/heatmap.
According to the 2019 index, which is summarized in Map 3.6, the world’s freest economies are (in rank order)
Hong Kong, Singapore, New Zealand, Switzerland, Australia, Ireland, United Kingdom, Canada, and the United Arab
Emirates. The United States was ranked 12, Germany came in at 24, Japan at 30, Mexico at 66, France at 71, Russia at
98, China at 100, India at 129, and Brazil at 150. The economies of Zimbabwe, Venezuela, Cuba, and North Korea are to
be found at the bottom of the rankings.28
Economic freedom does not necessarily equate with political freedom, as detailed in Map 3.6. For example, the two
top states in the Heritage Foundation index, Hong Kong and Singapore, cannot be classified as politically free. Hong
Kong was reabsorbed into communist China in 1997, and the first thing Beijing did was shut down Hong Kong’s freely
elected legislature. Singapore is ranked as only partly free on Freedom House’s index of political freedom, due to
practices such as widespread press censorship.
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Page 79
The Nature of Economic Transformation
LO3-3
Describe how transition economies are moving toward market-based systems.
The shift toward a market-based economic system often entails a number of steps: deregulation, privatization, and
creation of a legal system to safeguard property rights.29
DEREGULATION
Deregulation involves removing legal restrictions to the free play of markets, the establishment of private enterprises,
and the manner in which private enterprises operate. Before the collapse of communism, the governments in most
command economies exercised tight control over prices and output, setting both through detailed state planning. They
also prohibited private enterprises from operating in most sectors of the economy, severely restricted direct investment
by foreign enterprises, and limited international trade. Deregulation in these cases involved removing price controls,
thereby allowing prices to be set by the interplay between demand and supply; abolishing laws regulating the
establishment and operation of private enterprises; and relaxing or removing restrictions on direct investment by foreign
enterprises and international trade.
In mixed economies, the role of the state was more limited; but here, too, in certain sectors the state set prices,
owned businesses, limited private enterprise, restricted investment by foreigners, and restricted international trade. For
these countries, deregulation has involved the same kind of initiatives that we have seen in former command economies,
although the transformation has been easier because these countries often had a vibrant private sector. India is an
example of a country that has substantially deregulated its economy over the past two decades (see the upcoming
Country Focus).
Page 80
COUNTRY FOCUS
India’s Economic Transformation
After gaining independence from Britain in 1947, India adopted a democratic system of government. The economic system that
developed in India after 1947 was a mixed economy characterized by a large number of state-owned enterprises, centralized
planning, and subsidies. This system constrained the growth of the private sector. Private companies could expand only with
government permission. It could take years to get permission to diversify into a new product. Much of heavy industry, such as
auto, chemical, and steel production, was reserved for state-owned enterprises. Production quotas and high tariffs on imports also
stunted the development of a healthy private sector, as did labor laws that made it difficult to fire employees.
By the early 1990s, it was clear this system was incapable of delivering the kind of economic progress that many Southeast
Asian nations had started to enjoy. In 1994, India’s economy was still smaller than Belgium’s, despite having a population of 950
million. Its GDP per capita was a paltry $310, less than half the population could read, only 6 million had access to telephones, and
only 14 percent had access to clean sanitation; the World Bank estimated that some 40 percent of the world’s desperately poor
lived in India, and only 2.3 percent of the population had an annual household income in excess of $2,484.
The lack of progress led the government to embark on an ambitious economic reform program. Starting in 1991, much of the
industrial licensing system was dismantled. Several areas once closed to the private sector were opened, including electricity
generation, parts of the oil industry, steelmaking, air transport, and some areas of the telecommunications industry. Investment by
foreign enterprises, formerly allowed only grudgingly and subject to arbitrary ceilings, was suddenly welcomed. Approval was
made automatic for foreign equity stakes of up to 51 percent in an Indian enterprise, and 100 percent foreign ownership was
allowed under certain circumstances. Raw materials and many industrial goods could be freely imported, and the maximum tariff
that could be levied on imports was reduced from 400 percent to 65 percent. The top income tax rate was also reduced, and
corporate tax fell from 57.5 percent to 46 percent in 1994, and then to 35 percent in 1997. The government also announced plans to
start privatizing India’s state-owned businesses, some 40 percent of which were losing money in the early 1990s.
Judged by some measures, the response to these economic reforms has been impressive. The Indian economy expanded at an
annual rate of about 7 percent from 1997 to 2017. Foreign investment, a key indicator of how attractive foreign companies thought
the Indian economy was, jumped from $150 million in 1991 to over $40 billion in 2017. In the information technology sector,
India has emerged as a vibrant global center for software development with sales of $150 billion and exports of $117 billion in
2017, up from sales of just $150 million in 1990. In pharmaceuticals, too, Indian companies are emerging as credible players in the
global marketplace, primarily by selling low-cost, generic versions of drugs that have come off patent in the developed world.
However, the country still has a long way to go. Attempts to further reduce import tariffs have been stalled by political
opposition from employers, employees, and politicians who fear that if barriers come down, a flood of inexpensive Chinese
products will enter India. The privatization program continues to hit speed bumps—the latest in September 2003 when the Indian
Supreme Court ruled that the government could not privatize two state-owned oil companies without explicit approval from the
parliament. State-owned firms still account for 38 percent of national output in the nonfarm sector, yet India’s private firms are 30
to 40 percent more productive than state-owned enterprises. There has also been strong resistance to reforming many of India’s
laws that make it difficult for private business to operate efficiently. For example, labor laws make it almost impossible for firms
with more than 100 employees to fire workers, creating a disincentive for entrepreneurs to increase their enterprises beyond 100
employees. Other laws mandate that certain products can be manufactured only by small companies, effectively making it
impossible for companies in these industries to attain the scale required to compete internationally.
Sources: “India’s Breakthrough Budget?” The Economist, March 3, 2001; “America’s Pain, India’s Gain,” The Economist, January 11, 2003, p. 57; Joanna Slater, “In Once
Socialist India, Privatizations Are Becoming More Like Routine Matters,” The Wall Street Journal, July 5, 2002, p. A8; “India’s Economy: Ready to Roll Again?” The
Economist, September 20, 2003, pp. 39–40; Joanna Slater, “Indian Pirates Turned Partners,” The Wall Street Journal, November 13, 2003, p. A14; “The Next Wave: India,”
The Economist, December 17, 2005, p. 67; M. Dell, “The Digital Sector Can Make Poor Nations Prosper,” Financial Times, May 4, 2006, p. 17; “What’s Holding India
Back,” The Economist, March 8, 2008, p. 11; “Battling the Babu Raj,” The Economist, March 8, 2008, pp. 29–31; Rishi Lyengar, “India Tops Foreign Investment Rankings
Ahead of U.S. and China,” Time, October 11, 2015; and “FDI in India,” Indian Brand Equity Foundation, March 2018.
Page 81
PRIVATIZATION
Hand in hand with deregulation has come a sharp increase in privatization. Privatization, as discussed in Chapter 2,
transfers the ownership of state property into the hands of private individuals, frequently by the sale of state assets
through an auction.30 Privatization is seen as a way to stimulate gains in economic efficiency by giving new private
owners a powerful incentive—the reward of greater profits—to search for increases in productivity, to enter new
markets, and to exit losing ones.31
The privatization movement started in Great Britain in the early 1980s when then–Prime Minister Margaret
Thatcher started to sell state-owned assets such as the British telephone company, British Telecom (BT). In a pattern that
has been repeated around the world, this sale was linked with the deregulation of the British telecommunications
industry. By allowing other firms to compete head to head with BT, deregulation ensured that privatization did not
simply replace a state-owned monopoly with a private monopoly. Since the 1980s, privatization has become a worldwide
phenomenon. More than 8,000 acts of privatization were completed around the world between 1995 and 1999.32 Some
of the most dramatic privatization programs occurred in the economies of the former Soviet Union and its eastern
European satellite states. In the Czech Republic, for example, three-quarters of all state-owned enterprises were
privatized between 1989 and 1996, helping push the share of gross domestic product accounted for by the private sector
up from 11 percent in 1989 to 60 percent in 1995.33
Privatization is still ongoing today. For example, in 2017 the Brazilian government announced the privatization of a
state-owned electric company, airports, highways, ports, and the lottery (see the opening case). In Saudi Arabia, the
government has plans to privatize the state-owned oil company, Saudi Aramco. Conversely, in China the privatization of
inefficient state-owned enterprises has slowed down somewhat as the state pursues a “mixed ownership” strategy.34
Despite this three-decade trend, large amounts of economic activity are still in the hands of state-owned enterprises
in many nations. In China, for example, state-owned companies still dominate the banking, energy, telecommunications,
health care, and technology sectors. Overall, they account for about 40 percent of the country’s GDP. The World Bank
cautioned China that unless it reformed these sectors—liberalizing them and privatizing many state-owned enterprises—
the country runs the risk of experiencing a serious economic crisis.35
As privatization has proceeded, it has become clear that simply selling state-owned assets to private investors is not
enough to guarantee economic growth. Studies of privatization have shown that the process often fails to deliver
predicted benefits if the newly privatized firms continue to receive subsidies from the state and if they are protected from
foreign competition by barriers to international trade and foreign direct investment.36 In such cases, the newly privatized
firms are sheltered from competition and continue acting like state monopolies. When these circumstances prevail, the
newly privatized entities often have little incentive to restructure their operations to become more efficient. For
privatization to work, it must also be accompanied by a more general deregulation and opening of the economy. Thus,
when Brazil decided to privatize the state-owned telephone monopoly, Telebrás Brazil, the government also split the
company into four independent units that were to compete with each other and removed barriers to foreign direct
investment in telecommunications services. This action ensured that the newly privatized entities would face significant
competition and thus would have to improve their operating efficiency to survive.
LEGAL SYSTEMS
As noted in Chapter 2, a well-functioning market economy requires laws protecting private property rights and providing
mechanisms for contract enforcement. Without a legal system that protects property rights and without the machinery to
enforce that system, the incentive to engage in economic activity can be reduced substantially by private and public
entities, including organized crime, that expropriate the profits generated by the efforts of private-sector Page 82
entrepreneurs. For example, when communism collapsed in eastern Europe, many countries lacked the legal
structure required to protect property rights, all property having been held by the state. Although many nations have
made big strides toward instituting the required system, it may be years before the legal system is functioning as
smoothly as it does in the West. For example, in most eastern European nations, the title to urban and agricultural
property is often uncertain because of incomplete and inaccurate records, multiple pledges on the same property, and
unsettled claims resulting from demands for restitution from owners in the pre-communist era. Also, although most
countries have improved their commercial codes, institutional weaknesses still undermine contract enforcement. Court
capacity is often inadequate, and procedures for resolving contract disputes out of court are often lacking or poorly
developed.37 Nevertheless, progress is being made. In 2004, for example, China amended its constitution to state that
“private property was not to be encroached upon,” and in 2007 it enacted a new law on property rights that gave property
holders many of the same protections as those enjoyed by the state (see the Country Focus “Property Rights in
China”).38
TEST PREP
Use SmartBook to help retain what you have learned. Access your Instructor’s Connect course to check out SmartBook
or go to learnsmartadvantage.com for help.
Implications of Changing Political Economy
The global changes in political and economic systems discussed earlier have several implications for international
business. The long-standing ideological conflict between collectivism and individualism that defined the twentieth
century is less in evidence today. The West won the Cold War, and Western ideology is more widespread. Although
command economies remain and totalitarian dictatorships can still be found around the world, and although there has
been some retreat from democratic institutions, the world remains a more democratic place, with a much greater
adherence to a market-based economic system than was the case prior to 1988.
For nearly 50 years, half of the world was off-limits to Western businesses. Since the late 1980s, much of that has
changed. Many of the national markets of eastern Europe, Latin America, Africa, and Asia may still be underdeveloped,
but they are potentially enormous. With a population of more than 1.3 billion, the Chinese market alone is potentially
bigger than that of the United States, the European Union, and Japan combined. Similarly, India, with about 1.2 billion
people, is a potentially huge market. Latin America has another 600 million potential consumers. It is unlikely that
China, India, Vietnam, or any of the other states now moving toward a market system will attain the living standards of
the West soon. Nevertheless, the upside potential is so large that companies need to consider investing there. For
example, if China and the United States continue to grow at the rates they did from 1996 through 2018, China will
surpass the United States to become the world’s largest national economy within the next two decades.
Just as the potential gains are large, so are the risks. There is no guarantee that democracy will thrive in many of the
world’s newer democratic states, particularly if these states have to grapple with severe economic setbacks.
Authoritarianism is on the rise again and totalitarian dictatorships could return, although they are unlikely to be of the
communist variety. Though the bipolar world of the Cold War era has vanished, it may be replaced by a multipolar world
dominated by a number of civilizations. In such a world, much of the economic promise inherent in the global shift
toward market-based economic systems may stall in the face of conflicts between civilizations. While the long-term
potential for economic gain from investment in the world’s new market economies is large, the risks associated with any
such investment are also substantial. It would be foolish to ignore these. The financial system in China, for example, is
not transparent, and many suspect that Chinese banks hold a high proportion of nonperforming loans on their books. If
true, these bad debts could trigger a significant financial crisis during the next decade in China, which would
dramatically lower growth rates.
TEST PREP
Use SmartBook to help retain what you have learned. Access your Instructor’s Connect course to check out SmartBook
or go to learnsmartadvantage.com for help.
Page 83
FOCUS ON MANAGERIAL IMPLICATIONS
LO3-4
Explain the implications for management practice of national difference in political economy.
BENEFITS, COSTS, RISKS, AND OVERALL ATTRACTIVENESS OF DOING
BUSINESS INTERNATIONALLY
As noted in Chapter 2, the political, economic, and legal environments of a country clearly influence the attractiveness of
that country as a market or investment site. In this chapter, we argued that countries with democratic regimes, marketbased economic policies, and strong protection of property rights are more likely to attain high and sustained economic
growth rates and are thus a more attractive location for international business. It follows that the benefits, costs, and risks
associated with doing business in a country are a function of that country’s political, economic, and legal systems. The
overall attractiveness of a country as a market or investment site depends on balancing the likely long-term benefits of
doing business in that country against the likely costs and risks. Here, we consider the determinants of benefits, costs,
and risks.
Benefits
In the most general sense, the long-run monetary benefits of doing business in a country are a function of the size of the
market, the present wealth (purchasing power) of consumers in that market, and the likely future wealth of consumers.
While some markets are very large when measured by number of consumers (e.g., India), relatively low living standards
may imply limited purchasing power and, therefore, a relatively small market when measured in economic terms.
International businesses need to be aware of this distinction, but they also need to keep in mind the likely future
prospects of a country. In 1960, South Korea was viewed as just another impoverished third-world nation. By 2017, it
had the world’s 11th-largest economy. International firms that recognized South Korea’s potential in 1960 and began to
do business in that country may have reaped greater benefits than those that wrote off South Korea.
By identifying and investing early in a potential future economic star, international firms may build brand loyalty
and gain experience in that country’s business practices. These will pay back substantial dividends if that country
achieves sustained high economic growth rates. In contrast, late entrants may find that they lack the brand loyalty and
experience necessary to achieve a significant presence in the market. In the language of business strategy, early entrants
into potential future economic stars may be able to reap substantial first-mover advantages, while late entrants may fall
victim to late-mover disadvantages.39 (First-mover advantages are the advantages that accrue to early entrants into a
market. Late-mover disadvantages are the handicaps that late entrants might suffer.) This kind of reasoning has been
driving significant inward investment into China, which may become the world’s largest economy by 2030 if it continues
growing at current rates (China is already the world’s second-largest national economy). For more than two decades,
China has been the largest recipient of foreign direct investment in the developing world as international businesses—
including General Motors, Volkswagen, Coca-Cola, and Unilever—try to establish a sustainable advantage in this nation.
A country’s economic system and property rights regime are reasonably good predictors of economic prospects.
Countries with free market economies in which property rights are protected tend to achieve greater economic growth
rates than command economies or economies where property rights are poorly protected. It follows that a country’s
economic system, property rights regime, and market size (in terms of population) probably constitute reasonably good
indicators of the potential long-run benefits of doing business in a country. In contrast, countries where property rights
are not well respected and where corruption is rampant tend to have lower levels of economic growth. We must be
careful about generalizing too much from this, however, because both China and India have achieved high growth rates
despite relatively weak property rights regimes and high levels of corruption. In both countries, the shift toward a
market-based economic system has produced large gains despite weak property rights and endemic corruption. Page 84
Coca-Cola has been in China for about 40 years, and about 140 million servings of the company’s
products are enjoyed daily in China.
Testing/Shutterstock
Costs
A number of political, economic, and legal factors determine the costs of doing business in a country. With regard to
political factors, a company may be pushed to pay off politically powerful entities in a country before the government
allows it to do business there. The need to pay what are essentially bribes is greater in closed totalitarian states than in
open dem
ocrati c s ociet i es wher e p ol it i ci ans ar e h el d account able by the el ectorate (although t his is not a hard- and-fast
distinction). Whether a company should actually pay bribes in return for market access should be determined on the basis
of the legal and ethical implications of such action. We discuss this consideration in Chapter 5, when we look closely at
the issue of business ethics.
With regard to economic factors, one of the most important variables is the sophistication of a country’s economy.
It may be more costly to do business in relatively primitive or undeveloped economies because of the lack of
infrastructure and supporting businesses. At the extreme, an international firm may have to provide its own infrastructure
and supporting business, which obviously raises costs. When McDonald’s decided to open its first restaurant in Moscow,
it found that to serve food and drink indistinguishable from that served in McDonald’s restaurants elsewhere, it had to
vertically integrate backward to supply its own needs. The quality of Russian-grown potatoes and meat was too poor.
Thus, to protect the quality of its product, McDonald’s set up its own dairy farms, cattle ranches, vegetable plots, and
food-processing plants within Russia. This raised the cost of doing business in Russia, relative to the cost in more
sophisticated economies where high-quality inputs could be purchased on the open market.
As for legal factors, it can be more costly to do business in a country where local laws and regulations set strict
standards with regard to product safety, safety in the workplace, environmental pollution, and the like (because adhering
to such regulations is costly). It can also be more costly to do business in a country like the United States, where the
absence of a cap on damage awards has meant spiraling liability insurance rates. It can be more costly to do Page 85
business in a country that lacks well-established laws for regulating business practice (as is the case in many of
the former communist nations). In the absence of a well-developed body of business contract law, international firms
may find no satisfactory way to resolve contract disputes and, consequently, routinely face large losses from contract
violations. Similarly, local laws that fail to adequately protect intellectual property can lead to the theft of an
international business’s intellectual property and lost income.
Risks
As with costs, the risks of doing business in a country are determined by a number of political, economic, and legal
factors. Political risk has been defined as the likelihood that political forces will cause drastic changes in a country’s
business environment that adversely affect the profit and other goals of a business enterprise.40 So defined, political risk
tends to be greater in countries experiencing social unrest and disorder or in countries where the underlying nature of a
society increases the likelihood of social unrest. Social unrest typically finds expression in strikes, demonstrations,
terrorism, and violent conflict. Such unrest is more likely to be found in countries that contain more than one ethnic
nationality, in countries where competing ideologies are battling for political control, in countries where economic
mismanagement has created high inflation and falling living standards, or in countries that straddle the “fault lines”
between civilizations.
Social unrest can result in abrupt changes in government and government policy or, in some cases, in protracted
civil strife. Such strife tends to have negative economic implications for the profit goals of business enterprises. For
example, in the aftermath of the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran, the Iranian assets of numerous U.S. companies were
seized by the new Iranian government without compensation. Similarly, the violent disintegration of the Yugoslavian
federation into warring states, including Bosnia, Croatia, and Serbia, precipitated a collapse in the local economies and in
the profitability of investments in those countries.
More generally, a change in political regime can result in the enactment of laws that are less favorable to
international business. In Venezuela, for example, the populist socialist politician Hugo Chávez held power from 1998
until his death in 2013. Chávez declared himself to be a “Fidelista,” a follower of Cuba’s Fidel Castro. He pledged to
improve the lot of the poor in Venezuela through government intervention in private business and frequently railed
against American imperialism, all of which is of concern to Western enterprises doing business in the country. Among
other actions, he increased the royalties that foreign oil companies operating in Venezuela had to pay the government
from 1 to 30 percent of sales.
Other risks may arise from a country’s mismanagement of its economy. An economic risk can be defined as the
likelihood that economic mismanagement will cause drastic changes in a country’s business environment that hurt the
profit and other goals of a particular business enterprise. Economic risks are not independent of political risk. Economic
mismanagement may give rise to significant social unrest and, hence, political risk. Nevertheless, economic risks are
worth emphasizing as a separate category because there is not always a one-to-one relationship between economic
mismanagement and social unrest. One visible indicator of economic mismanagement tends to be a country’s inflation
rate. Another is the level of business and government debt in the country.
The collapse in oil prices that occurred in 2014–2015 exposed economic mismanagement and increased economic
risk in a number countries that had been overly dependent upon oil revenues to finance profligate government spending.
In countries such as Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela, high oil prices had enabled national governments to spend
lavishly on social programs and public sector infrastructure. As oil prices collapsed, these countries saw government
revenues tumble. Budget deficits began to climb sharply, their currencies fell on foreign exchange markets, price
inflation began to accelerate as the price of imports rose, and their economies started to contract, increasing
unemployment and creating the potential for social disruption. None of this was good for those countries, nor did it
benefit foreign business that had invested in those economies.
Page 86
On the legal front, risks arise when a country’s legal system fails to provide adequate safeguards in the
case of contract violations or to protect property rights. When legal safeguards are weak, firms are more likely to break
contracts or steal intellectual property if they perceive it as being in their interests to do so. Thus, a legal risk can be
defined as the likelihood that a trading partner will opportunistically break a contract or expropriate property rights.
When legal risks in a country are high, an international business might hesitate entering into a long-term contract or
joint-venture agreement with a firm in that country. For example, in the 1970s when the Indian government passed a law
requiring all foreign investors to enter into joint ventures with Indian companies, U.S. companies such as IBM and CocaCola closed their investments in India. They believed that the Indian legal system did not provide adequate protection of
intellectual property rights, creating the very real danger that their Indian partners might expropriate the intellectual
property of the American companies—which for IBM and Coca-Cola amounted to the core of their competitive
advantage.
Overall Attractiveness
The overall attractiveness of a country as a potential market or investment site for an international business depends on
balancing the benefits, costs, and risks associated with doing business in that country (see Figure 3.1). Generally, the
costs and risks associated with doing business in a foreign country are typically lower in economically advanced and
politically stable democratic nations and greater in less developed and politically unstable nations. The calculus is
complicated, however, because the potential long-run benefits are dependent not only on a nation’s current stage of
economic development or political stability but also on likely future economic growth rates. Economic growth appears to
be a function of a free market system and a country’s capacity for growth (which may be greater in less developed
nations). This leads us to conclude that, other things being equal, the benefit–cost–risk trade-off is likely to be most
favorable in politically stable developed and developing nations that have free market systems and no dramatic upsurge
in either inflation rates or private-sector debt. It is likely to be least favorable in politically unstable developing nations
that operate with a mixed or command economy or in developing nations where speculative financial bubbles have led to
excess borrowing.
Page 87
FIGURE 3.1 Country attractiveness.
Key Terms
gross national income (GNI), p. 64
purchasing power parity (PPP), p. 64
Human Development Index (HDI), p. 68
innovation, p. 69
entrepreneurs, p. 70
deregulation, p. 79
first-mover advantages, p. 83
late-mover disadvantages, p. 83
political risk, p. 85
economic risk, p. 85
legal risk, p. 86
SUMMARY
This chapter reviewed how the political, economic, and legal systems of countries vary. The potential benefits, costs,
and risks of doing business in a country are a function of its political, economic, and legal systems. The chapter made
the following points:
1. The rate of economic progress in a country seems to depend on the extent to which that country has a wellfunctioning market economy in which property rights are protected.
2. Many countries are now in a state of transition. There is a marked shift away from totalitarian governments
and command or mixed economic systems and toward democratic political institutions and free market
economic systems.
3. The attractiveness of a country as a market and/or investment site depends on balancing the likely long-run
benefits of doing business in that country against the likely costs and risks.
4. The benefits of doing business in a country are a function of the size of the market (population), its present
wealth (purchasing power), and its future growth prospects. By investing early in countries that are currently
poor but are nevertheless growing rapidly, firms can gain first-mover advantages that will pay back substantial
dividends in the future.
5. The costs of doing business in a country tend to be greater where political payoffs are required to gain market
access, where supporting infrastructure is lacking or underdeveloped, and where adhering to local laws and
regulations is costly.
6. The risks of doing business in a country tend to be greater in countries that are politically unstable, subject to
economic mismanagement, and lacking a legal system to provide adequate safeguards in the case of contract
or property rights violations.
Critical Thinking and Discussion Questions
1. What is the relationship among property rights, corruption, and economic progress? How important are
anticorruption efforts in the effort to improve a country’s level of economic development?
2. You are a senior manager in a U.S. automobile company considering investing in production facilities in
China, Russia, or Germany. These facilities will serve local market demand. Evaluate the benefits, costs, and
risks associated with doing business in each nation. Which country seems the most attractive target for foreign
direct investment? Why?
3. Reread the Country Focus “India’s Economic Transformation” and answer the following questions.
a. What kind of economic system did India operate under during 1947–1990? What kind of system is it
moving toward today? What are the impediments to completing this transformation?
b. How might widespread public ownership of businesses and extensive government regulations have
affected (i) the efficiency of state and private businesses and (ii) the rate of new business Page 88
formation in India during the 1947–1990 time frame? How do you think these factors affected
the rate of economic growth in India during this time frame?
c. How would privatization, deregulation, and the removal of barriers to foreign direct investment affect the
efficiency of business, new business formation, and the rate of economic growth in India during the post1990 period?
d. India now has pockets of strengths in key high-technology industries such as software and
pharmaceuticals. Why do you think India is developing strength in these areas? How might success in
these industries help generate growth in the other sectors of the Indian economy?
e. Given what is now occurring in the Indian economy, do you think the country represents an attractive
target for inward investment by foreign multinationals selling consumer products? Why?
global EDGE research
task globaledge.msu.edu
Use the globalEDGE™ website (globaledge.msu.edu) to complete the following exercises:
1. Increased instability in the global marketplace can introduce unanticipated risks in a company’s daily
transactions. Your company must evaluate these commercial transaction risks for its foreign operations in
Argentina, China, Egypt, Poland, and South Africa. A risk analyst at your firm said you could evaluate both
the political and commercial risk of these countries simultaneously. Provide a commercial transaction risk
overview of all five countries for top management. In your evaluation, indicate possible corrective measures
in the countries with considerably high political and/or commercial risk.
2. Managers at your firm are very concerned about the influence of terrorism on its long-term strategy. To
counter this issue, the CEO has indicated you must identify the countries where terrorism threats and political
risk are minimal. This will provide the basis for the development of future company facilities, which need to
be built in all major continents in the world. Include recommendations on which countries in each continent
would serve as a good candidate for your company to further analyze.
CLOSING CASE
Brazil’s Struggling Economy
Between 2000 and 2012, Brazil had one of the fastest-growing economies in the world, expanding by over 5 percent per
year. In 2012, the Brazilian economy temporarily surpassed that of the United Kingdom, making it the world’s sixthlargest economy. Brazil’s economic gains were partly due to booming international demand for commodities and high
commodity prices. Brazil is a major exporter of coffee, soybeans, and iron ore. The country also benefited from strong
domestic demand, cheap credit in international markets, inflows of foreign capital, tame inflation (important in a country
wi t h a his t o r y of hyperi nf l ation), and moder atel y conservative m
acro-economi c policies . Si nce 2012, h owever , Br azil
has been beset by a deep economic malaise. Economic growth decelerated in 2013. The economy entered into a serious
recession in 2014. Economic activity contracted by over 3.5 percent in both 2015 and 2016 before growing by a sluggish
0.7 percent in 2017 and just 1.1 percent in 2018.
Brazil’s economic problems were partly due to weaker demand for exports and a fall in global commodity prices. In
2010, exports grew 11.6 percent, but that growth stalled in 2012, and in 2014 exports contracted by 1 percent. Page 89
However, the country has other deep structural problems that led to a fall in domestic demand. Under the
leadership of President Dilma Rousseff and her left-of-center Workers’ Party, between 2011 and 2014 the government
spent extravagantly on higher pensions and unproductive tax breaks for favored industries. When the economic
slowdown hit, unemployment surged to over 12 percent and tax revenues slumped. As a result of higher outlays and
lower tax revenues, the fiscal deficit swelled from 2 percent of GDP in 2010 to 10 percent in 2015. This pushed up total
government debt to 70 percent of GDP and required higher interest rates to sell government bonds, which were seen as
increasingly risky. The government also raised interest rates to keep inflation in check, which historically has been a
problem in Brazil. Because of high interest rates, the cost of servicing government debt expanded to 7 percent of GDP—
and, of course, higher interest rates, by raising borrowing costs for consumers and businesses, further depressed
economic activity.
Paulo Vilela/Shutterstock
Given high interest rates, the only way for the government to get the fiscal deficit under control is to cut spending
and raise taxes. This has not been easy to do. A central problem in Brazil is the country’s pension obligations. The
pension system entitles Brazilians to retire, on average, at just 54. Pension obligations already account for 13 percent of
GDP. Without reform, that figure could balloon to 25 percent by mid-century as the population ages.
In addition, tariff barriers protecting inefficient local enterprises from foreign competition, labor laws, and
burdensome tax laws have long been seen as a drag on the Brazilian economy. A typical manufacturing firm spends
2,600 hours a year complying with the country’s complex tax code; the Latin American average is 356 hours. Labor laws
make it expensive to fire even incompetent workers. And protection from international competition has resulted in
manufacturing productivity that is low by international standards. To compound matters, the country has been beset by a
massive corruption scandal that has reached into the highest levels of government. This resulted in the impeachment of
Rousseff in 2016 and further damaged confidence in the economy (see the Country Focus “Corruption in Brazil” in
Chapter 2).
In 2016, Michel Temer replaced Rousseff as President. He made a promising start to reforming the economy. He
froze public spending in real terms for the next 20 years. He also overhauled the country’s labor laws, making it much
easier to fire unproductive workers. Inflation moderated significantly, and a rise in commodity prices helped increase
exports. This allowed the central bank to reduce interest rates to 6.75 percent (they were as high as 12 percent), further
boosting economic growth. There was also a rash of privatizations—including that of the leading electric utility,
Eletrobras—as the government sought to raise capital by selling state assets and tried to increase the efficiency of the
economy. What remains is to fix the country’s pension problems. This would require raising the retirement age
significantly. Temer ran up against strong resistance. His initial proposals failed to garner enough votes in the Brazilian
congress to change the law on pensions.
In October 2018, Brazil held elections. Temer’s left wing Worker’s Party lost the election. The victor, Jair
Bolsonaro of the right-wing Social Liberal Party, ran on a law-and-order ticket, promising to fix Brazil’s high crime rate.
He also stated he would make necessary reforms to the country’s pension system.
Sources: Denise Chrispim Marin, “Brazil’s Half Glass Economy,” Global Finance, October 3, 2017; “Michel Temer Is Trying to Fix Brazil’s Pension Systems,” The Economist, February
15, 2018; “Will Brazil’s Future Arrive?” The Economist, August 17, 2017; “Brazil’s Fall,” The Economist, January 2, 2016; Jeffrey T. Lewis, “Brazil Posted Lackluster Economic Growth
in 2018,” The Wall Street Journal, February 28, 2019.
Case Discussion Questions
1. Brazil
was
seen
as
one
of
the
world’s
f ast estgrowing developing economies in the 2000–2010 period. What were the foundations of this success?
2. Why did Brazil’s economic growth falter after 2012? How much of the damage was self-inflicted, and how much
was due to factors outside of the country’s control?
3. What do you think of Temer’s economic reforms? Were they on the right track?
4. What policies do you think Brazil should adopt going forward to reignite economic growth? How easy would it
be to implement these policies in Brazil?
Design elements: Modern textured halftone: ©VIPRESIONA/Shutterstock; globalEDGE icon: ©globalEDGE; All others: ©McGraw-Hill Education
Page 90
Endnotes
1. World Bank, World Development Indicators Online, 2019.
2. Brindusa Mihaela Tudose and Raluca Irina Clipa, “An Analysis of the Shadow Economy in EU Countries,” CES
Working
Papers,”
Volume
111,
Issue
2,
pp.
303–312,
2018.
www.ceswp.uaic.ro/articles/CESWP2016_VIII2_TUD.pdf.
3. A. Sen, Development as Freedom (New York: Knopf, 1999).
4. G. M. Grossman and E. Helpman, “Endogenous Innovation in the Theory of Growth,” Journal of Economic
Perspectives 8, no. 1 (1994), pp. 23–44; P. M. Romer, “The Origins of Endogenous Growth,” Journal of
Economic Perspectives 8, no. 1 (1994), pp. 2–22.
5. W. W. Lewis, The Power of Productivity (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004).
6. F. A. Hayek, The Fatal Conceit: Errors of Socialism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989).
7. J. Gwartney, R. Lawson, and W. Block, Economic Freedom of the World: 1975–1995 (London: Institute of
Economic Affairs, 1996); C. Doucouliagos and M. Ali Ulubasoglu, “Economic Freedom and Economic Growth:
Does Specification Make a Difference?” European Journal of Political Economy 22 (March 2006), pp. 60–81.
8. D. North, Institutions, Institutional Change, and Economic Performance (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University
Press, 1991). See also K. M. Murphy, A. Shleifer, and R. Vishney, “Why Is Rent Seeking So Costly to Growth?,”
American Economic Review 83, no. 2 (1993), pp. 409–14; K. E. Maskus, “Intellectual Property Rights in the
Global Economy,” Institute for International Economics, 2000.
9. North, Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance.
10. H. de Soto, The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else (New
York: Basic Books, 2000).
11. A. O. Hirschman, “The On-and-Off Again Connection between Political and Economic Progress,” American
Economic Review 84, no. 2 (1994), pp. 343–48; A. Przeworski and F. Limongi, “Political Regimes and Economic
Growth,” Journal of Economic Perspectives 7, no. 3 (1993), pp. 51–59.
12. Hirschman, Albert O. ‘’The On-and-off Again Connection between Political and Economic Progress.’’ The
American Economic Review 84, no. 2, Papers and Proceedings of the Hundred and Sixth Annual Meeting of the
American Economic Association (May, 1994): 343--48. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2117856?
seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents.
13. For details of this argument, see M. Olson, “Dictatorship, Democracy, and Development,” American Political
Science Review, September 1993.
14. For example, see Jared Diamond’s Pulitzer Prize–winning book Guns, Germs, and Steel (New York: Norton,
1997). Also see J. Sachs, “Nature, Nurture and Growth,” The Economist, June 14, 1997, pp. 19–22; J. Sachs, The
End of Poverty (New York: Penguin Books, 2005).
15. Sachs,
Jeffrey.
“Nature,
Nurture
and
Growth.”
The
Economist,
June
12,
1997.
https://www.economist.com/special/1997/06/12/nature-nurture-and-growth.
16. “What Can the Rest of the World Learn from the Classrooms of Asia?” The Economist, September 21, 1996, p.
24.
17. J. Fagerberg, “Technology and International Differences in Growth Rates,” Journal of Economic Literature 32
(September 1994), pp. 1147–75.
18. D. Baker, J. B. Delong and P. R. Krugman, “Asset Returns and Economic Growth,” Brookings Papers on
Economic Activity, 2005, 289–330; G. S. Becker, E. L. Laeser, and K. M. Murphy, “Population and Economic
Growth,” American Economic Review, 89(2) pp. 214–228.
19. See The Freedom House Survey Team, “Freedom in the World 2018,” and associated materials,
www.freedomhouse.org.
20. Freedom House, “Democracies Century: A Survey of Political Change in the Twentieth Century, 1999,”
www.freedomhouse.org.
21. L. Conners, “Freedom to Connect,” Wired, August 1997, pp. 105–6.
22. Diego Cupolo, “Turks Have Voted Away Their Democracy,” The Atlantic, June 25, 2018; “Turkey: End
Prosecutions for ‘Insulting the President,’” Human Rights Watch, October 17, 2018.
23. Fukuyama,
Francis.
“The
End
of
History?”
The
National
Interest
(Summer
1989).
https://history.msu.edu/hst203/files/2011/02/Fukuyama-The-End-of-History.pdf.
24. S. P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (New York: Simon & Schuster,
1996).
25. Huntington, Samuel. The Clash of Civilizations And the Remaking of World Order. New York: Simon &
Schuster, 2011.
26. U.S. National Counterterrorism Center, Reports on Incidents of Terrorism, 2005, April 11, 2006.
27. S. Fischer, R. Sahay, and C. A. Vegh, “Stabilization and the Growth in Transition Economies: The Early
Experience,” Journal of Economic Perspectives 10 (Spring 1996), pp. 45–66.
28. M. Miles et al., 2018 Index of Economic Freedom (Washington, DC: Heritage Foundation, 2018).
29. International Monetary Fund, World Economic Outlook: Focus on Transition Economies (Geneva: IMF, October
2000). “Transition Economies, an IMF Perspective on Progress and Prospects,” IMF, November 3, 2000. Page 91
30. J. C. Brada, “Privatization Is Transition—Is It?” Journal of Economic Perspectives, Spring 1996, pp. 67–
86.
31. See S. Zahra et al., “Privatization and Entrepreneurial Transformation,” Academy of Management Review 3, no.
25 (2000), pp. 509–24.
32. N. Brune, G. Garrett, and B. Kogut, “The International Monetary Fund and the Global Spread of Privatization,”
IMF Staff Papers 51, no. 2 (2003), pp. 195–219.
33. Fischer et al., “Stabilization and Growth in Transition Economies.”
34. Shannon Sims, “Brazil’s Privatization Push,” US News and World Reports, October 11, 2017; Jane Cai, “Forget
Privatization, Xi Has Other Big Plans for Bloated State Firms,” South China Morning Post, September 6, 2017.
35. “China 2030,” World Bank, 2012.
36. J. Sachs, C. Zinnes, and Y. Eilat, “The Gains from Privatization in Transition Economies: Is Change of
Ownership Enough?” CAER discussion paper no. 63 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Institute for International
Development, 2000).
37. M. S. Borish and M. Noel, “Private Sector Development in the Visegrad Countries,” World Bank, March 1997.
38. “Caught between Right and Left,” The Economist, March 8, 2007.
39. For a discussion of first-mover advantages, see M. Liberman and D. Montgomery, “First-Mover Advantages,”
Strategic Management Journal 9 (Summer Special Issue, 1988), pp. 41–58.
40. S. H. Robock, “Political Risk: Identification and Assessment,” Columbia Journal of World Business, July–August
1971, pp. 6–20.
part two National Differences
Page 92
Differences in Culture
4
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
After reading this chapter, you will be able to:
LO4-1
Explain what is meant by the culture of a society.
LO4-2
Identify the forces that lead to differences in social culture.
LO4-3
Identify the business and economic implications of differences in culture.
LO4-4
Recognize how differences in social culture influence values in business.
LO4-5
Demonstrate an appreciation for the economic and business implications of cultural change.
George Hammerstein/Corbis/Glow Images
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Singapore: One of the World’s Most Multicultural Places
OPENING CASE
Singapore (www.gov.sg) has a population of roughly 5.7 million people, with 100 percent of its citizens living in urban areas due to
its city-state infrastructure. (Athens in Greece, and Rome in Italy, began as city-states, also.) A city-state is often defined as a
sovereign state, basically a type of small independent country that usually consists of a single city and smaller peripheral dependent
territories. Singapore and Vatican City (the Holy See) are considered the most well-known city-states in the world today. As for
Vatican City, it is a city-state surrounded by Rome in Italy, and is of course the headquarters of the Roman Catholic Church, where
the Pope resides.
Singapore is in Southeastern Asia, and is an island city between southern Malaysia and Indonesia. The climate is tropical with
two distinct monsoon seasons: Northeastern monsoon (December to March) and Southwestern monsoon (June to September). Despite
its small size, Singapore ranks 14th globally in exporting, 16th in importing, and has a positive trade balance that places the country
9th in the world on the export-to-import ratio. Among corporations and global travelers, Singapore is favored for many reasons, such
as low corruption, global connectedness, ease of doing business, global competitiveness, innovation, opportunities, economic
freedom, networked readiness, and reasonable taxes. Some of the negatives include environmental performance, freedom of the press,
and political leadership.
One of the most fascinating characteristics of Singapore is its unique multicultural makeup. Not only is it a city-state, it is also
very young compared to other places that have become equally multicultural and successful in the global marketplace. It was only
about half a century ago that Singapore gained independence from Malaysia (on August 9, 1965). The tiny island nation is proud of
the diverse cultures and religions that meld in relative harmony within its borders. While the majority of Singapore’s residents are of
Chinese origin, other prominent ethnic groups include Malays, Indians, and Eurasians. People from the United States and Canada are
also represented, but in smaller numbers. To be culturally inclusive and in an effort to ensure that communication remains smooth
among its citizens, Singapore boasts four official languages: English, Malay, Mandarin, and Tamil.
Singapore is a costly destination for tourists, and many of its residents pay hefty sums to live there. Nevertheless, Singapore’s
melting-pot culture makes the country unique and a bridge between various parts of the world. Companies and people engage with
Singapore for these cultural and business reasons. So, how costly is Singapore for multinational corporations? The benefits must
outweigh the costs, given the myriad companies in Singapore. Indeed, several cost-based indices exist to rank countries in the world,
and these indices provide a picture of how costly, or inexpensive, Singapore is for people and businesses. For example, the Index of
Economic Freedom (developed by The Heritage Foundation) focuses on assessing the fundamental right of every human to control
his or her own labor and property. Singapore is ranked number 2 on the IEF, meaning the country is very accommodating.
Another index that shows Singapore’s cost to companies is The Paying Taxes Indicator. This index, generated by
PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and The World Bank, investigates and compares tax regimes across economies worldwide. Again,
Singapore scores high, ranking number 7 in the world. This means Singapore’s government welcomes and facilitates multinational
corporations doing business in the city-state. Because Singapore is small, many companies benefit from the robust infrastructure of its
centralized government, as well as its pervasive accommodations for foreign businesses. In the end, businesses thrive in Singapore,
even if tourists and citizens find the country costly. (Singapore is usually ranked as one of the most expensive cities to live in.)
For its part, the Singapore Board of Tourism stresses that “Singapore is where cultures, religions, and even passions meet!” The
idea is that Singapore’s strength in diversity is why people and companies should engage with their city-state. Billed as one of the
most harmonious and plural nations on the planet, its ethnic communities are vibrant and diverse, its religions co-exist in harmony, its
varied peoples celebrate as one, and as a result of it all, its citizens’ passions come alive.
Sources: Marcelina Morfin, “The 10 Most Multicultural Cities in the World,” April 16, 2018; Karen Gilchrist, “Singapore Named the World’s Most Expensive City,” CNBC,
March 14, 2018; Amir Yusof, “Principles for Budget 2019 Reflect the Singapore way,” Channel NewsAsia, February 28, 2019; “Singapore on globalEDGE,”
globaledge.msu.edu/countries/singapore, March 1, 2019.
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Introduction
In Chapters 2 and 3, we saw how national differences in political, economic, and legal systems influence the benefits,
costs, and risks associated with doing business in various countries of the world. In this chapter, we explore how
differences in culture—both across and within countries—can have an effect on a company’s international business
strategies. This includes a focus on the development and implementation of international business strategies for all types
of companies—from small to medium to large companies. Large multinational corporations often become the focus in
textbooks, but culture affects every size and type of organization.
Several themes run through this chapter. The first is that business success in many, if not most, countries requires
cross-cultural literacy. By cross-cultural literacy we mean understanding how cultural differences across and within
countries can have an effect on the way business is practiced. It is sometimes easy to forget how different cultures across
the globe really are even today.1 Beneath the veneer of globalization, deep cultural differences often remain that can
have a marked effect on a number of issues in a company’s value chain. These differences are also what create a
common bond—a value system—among people in a country, in essence a reason for the country to exist. Culturally
based value systems can also reside in families, companies, and world regions. Sometimes even industries have distinct
value systems.2
Numerous values and norms reside in these cultural systems. Some affect international business, some do not, and
with some it is hard to tell if they affect international strategy and implementation. For example, Sweden has been found
to be the country where people tend to be most patient among the 195 countries in the world (followed by the
Netherlands and the United States). A team of researchers concluded, “Populations of European ancestry tend to be more
patient than the world mean. Indeed, all of the 10 most patient countries in the world are either located in the neoEuropean, English-speaking world, or else in Western Europe, with the Scandinavian countries exhibiting particularly
high levels of patience.”3 The country where people tend to be least patient is Nicaragua (followed by Rwanda and
Georgia). Patience, risk aversion, reciprocity, altruism, and trust are all culture-related factors that make each country
unique.
The opening case shows that Singapore is unique in its multicultural blend of people’s backgrounds and
characteristics. Contrary to cultural differences that often separate people and create friction, Singaporeans value their
multicultural makeup and draw strength from it. Not only is Singapore a city-state, it is also very young compared to
other places that have become equally multicultural and economically successful. Singapore gained independence from
Malaysia in 1965, and since then the tiny island nation has proudly nurtured diverse cultures and religions that melt
together in harmony. The majority of Singapore’s residents are of Chinese origin. Other prominent groups include
Malays, Indians, and Eurasians (Americans and Canadians are also represented, but in smaller numbers). To be culturally
inclusive, Singapore boasts four official languages: English, Malay, Mandarin, and Tamil. Perhaps we can go as far as
saying that, as one of the most multicultural places in the world, Singapore creates a unique cultural homogeneity out of
its diverse existence.
Skipping ahead to the end of this chapter, the closing case on China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan highlights
some of the traditional deep cultural differences that can exist. However, this occurs in a region that many believe
consists of nations and areas with a very similar cultural background—i.e., Greater China. Instead, what we find is that
throughout the colonial era, Hong Kong’s citizens developed a distinct “Hong Kong identity” that seeks to be recognized
as a unique culturally based “national identity.” Meanwhile, the Taiwanese culture, a blend of Confucian Han Chinese
and Taiwanese aboriginal cultures, is often at odds with mainland China. On the positive side, Macau has had a better
experience with mainland China due to the economic difficulties that preceded the handover of Macau from Portugal to
China in 1999. China came in as a helping hand economically at the right time, resulting in a much better Page 95
partnership between China and Macau than between China and Hong Kong and Taiwan, respectively. Macau is
also being positioned as a key diplomatic player in China’s relations with Portuguese-speaking countries.
While some observers around the world may simply refer to the Greater China Region as “Chinese,” the deeply
ingrained cultural values of the region’s separate entities are very different from each other as a practical matter.
Consequently, cultural differences affect doing business in the region differently. This includes the various cost factors at
play. As such, another theme we develop in this chapter is that a relationship exists between culture and the cost of doing
business in a country or region. Different countries will be either more or less supportive of the market-based mode of
production and sales to customers (i.e., where supply and demand set the prices for products and services).
For example, cultural factors were the triggers that lowered the costs of doing business in Japan and helped explain
Japan’s rapid ascent as an industrialized and competitive nation in the world about half a century ago.4 Cultural factors
can also trigger rising costs in doing business. Historically, class divisions were an important aspect of the British
culture, and for a long time, firms operating in the United Kingdom found it difficult to achieve cooperation between
management and labor. Class divisions led to a high level of industrial disputes in the UK during the same period that
Japan was developing into a global force. This mismatch hurt the United Kingdom but opened up doors for Japan. It also
raised the costs of doing business in Britain relative to the costs in countries such as Germany, Japan, Norway, Sweden,
and Switzerland, where class conflict was historically less prevalent. Cultural foundations in many ways are also behind
the last decade of nationalistic movements around the world (e.g., France, Germany, United Kingdom, United States),
often resulting in higher tariffs and overall international trade costs across country borders.
The examples of Japan and the United Kingdom bring us to another theme we explore in this chapter: Culture is not
static. Culture is rooted in the values and norms we have as people, and those are generally tied to doing something over
a period of time. Think about it. If you do the same thing over and over, it becomes a habit, and then you almost take it
for granted. But sometimes you break the habit and start something new or change how you do certain things. Culture is
very much the same. Culture can and does evolve, although the rate at which cultures change is a subject of dispute.
(From a personal vantage point, how easy or often do we change habits?) Generally, culture evolves as certain behaviors
of people become ingrained and coded into people’s values and norms. A cultural mindset develops that is consistent
with people’s behavior over time. Then, at some point again in the future, things may happen that cause people’s
behavior to once more change, and so culture continues to evolve.
You likely realize that your own personal cultural values and norms are hard to change. The same goes for the
culture of a society, which evolves when large population segments in a country or region adopt values based on
common ways of behaving. Societal changes are usually very slow moving. Importantly, multinational corporations
operating across national cultures typically have unique values and norms as well. Consequently, many individuals have
certain values and norms in their personal lives, possibly a (slightly) different set of vales and norms at work, and yet a
different way of behaving in society. This is not to say that there are not overlaps, but many people also act differently in
each context based on values and norms that pertain to a specific context.
What Is Culture?
LO4-1
Explain what is meant by the culture of a society.
People have a hard time agreeing on a simple definition of culture. This makes it difficult to be strategic about what type
of culture can be created in small, medium, and large companies operating in some portion of the world’s 195 countries.
Because culture as a system of values and norms resides in multiple layers of society (people, families, companies,
industries, countries, and world regions), we also have to take into account these important layers of culture and how
they interact with each other.
Page 96
If we go back to the 1870s, anthropologist Edward Tylor defined culture as “that complex whole which
includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and other capabilities acquired by man as a member of society.”5
Since then, thousands of definitions have been argued over and defended by diverse experts from many cultures—in
other words, culture actually affects how different people define culture itself!
Look around your college or university. Do you think the students can collectively define culture in a universally
acceptable way that fits all geographic areas represented by the students or even among a smaller group of your friends?
The answer is probably maybe, but after a few tries. However, we will make it easier by focusing on culture as it relates
to international business (instead of everything related to culture).
To start, Florence Kluckhohn and Fred Strodtbeck’s values orientation theory of culture states that all definitions of
culture must answer a limited number of universal problems, that the value-based solutions are limited in number and
universally known, and that different cultures have different preferences among them.6 Following their work, other
prominent specialists have supported the idea of a universal set of human values serving as the basis for culture; see
Milton Rokeach’s work on “the nature of human values” and Shalom Schwartz’s work on the “theory of basic human
values.”7Rokeach and Schwartz are prominent culture experts who have had a significant influence on theorists,
including Geert Hofstede.
Also supportive of a finite set of human values, Geert Hofstede, a Dutch expert on cross-cultural differences and
international management, defined culture as “the collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members
of one human group from another.”8 Hofstede’s work is by far the most used culture research in business over the last
half a century, and this textbook relies on his scientific approach to understand how, when, and why culture has an
impact on multinational corporations. At the basic level, culture includes systems of values, and values are among the
building blocks of culture.9 Another complementary definition of culture comes from sociologists Zvi Namenwirth and
Robert Weber, who see culture as a system of ideas and argue that these ideas constitute a design for living.10
Discussion in this textbook subscribes to culture as conceptualized by Hofstede and influenced by the team of
Namenwirth and Weber. As such, culture is a system of values and norms that are shared among a group of people and
that when taken together constitute a design for living. Values are ideas about what a group believes to be good, right,
and desirable. Put differently, values are shared assumptions about how things ought to be.11 Norms are the social rules
and guidelines that prescribe appropriate behavior in particular situations. Society refers to a group of people sharing a
common set of values and norms. While a society may be equivalent to a country, some countries have several societies
or subcultures, and some societies embrace more than one country. For example, the Scandinavian countries of
Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden are often viewed as culturally being one society. The implication is
that if one Scandinavian country’s people like a product from a company, there is a very good chance customers from the
other Scandinavian countries will as well.
Geert Hofstede, often viewed as the top expert on cross-cultural differences in international business,
presents his work in Istanbul, Turkey, at the Academy of International Business conference.
Academy of International Business (AIB)
VALUES AND NORMS
Values form the bedrock of a culture. Values provide the context within which a society’s norms are established and
justified. They may include a society’s attitudes toward such concepts as individual freedom, democracy, truth, justice,
honesty, loyalty, social obligations, collective responsibility, women, love, sex, marriage, and so on. Values are not just
abstract concepts; they are invested with considerable emotional significance. People argue, fight, and even die over
values, such as freedom. Freedom and security are often the core reasons the political leadership in many Page 97
developed nations (e.g., United States) uses when justifying their country engaging in various parts of the world.
Values are also reflected in the economic systems of a society. For example, as we saw in Chapter 2, democratic free
market capitalism is a reflection of a philosophical value system that emphasizes individual freedom.12
Norms are the social rules that govern people’s actions toward one another. These norms can be subdivided into
two major categories: folkways and mores. Both of these norm-related categories were coined in 1906 by William
Graham Sumner, an American sociologist, and they are still applicable and embedded in our societies. Folkways are the
routine conventions of everyday life. Generally, folkways are actions of little moral significance. Rather, they are social
conventions that deal with things like appropriate dress code, good social manners, eating with the correct utensils,
neighborly behavior, and so on. Although folkways define the way people are expected to behave, violations of them are
not normally a serious matter. People who violate folkways may be thought of as eccentric or ill-mannered, but they are
not usually considered to be evil or bad. In many countries, foreigners may initially be excused for violating folkways.
However, traveling managers are increasingly expected to know about specific dress codes, social and professional
manners, eating with the correct utensils, and business etiquette. The evolution of norms now demands that business
partners at least try to behave according to the folkways in the country in which they are doing business.
A good example of a folkway is people’s attitude toward time. People are very aware of what time it is, the passage
of time, and the importance of time in the United States and northern European cultures such as Germany, Netherlands,
and the Scandinavian countries (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden). In these cultures, business people are
very conscious about scheduling their time and are quickly irritated when time is wasted because a business associate is
late for a meeting or if they are kept waiting for any reason. Time is really money in the minds of these business people.
The opposite of the time-conscious Americans, Germans, Dutch, and Scandinavians, business people in many
Arabic, Latin, and African cultures view time as more elastic. Keeping to a schedule is viewed as less important than
building a relationship or finishing an interaction with people. For example, an American businessperson might feel
slighted if he or she is kept waiting for 30 minutes outside the office of a Latin American executive before a meeting.
However, the Latin American person may simply be completing an interaction with another associate and view the
information gathered from this as more important than sticking to a rigid schedule. The Latin American executive
intends no disrespect, but due to a mutual misunderstanding about the importance of time, the American may see things
differently. Similarly, Saudi Arabian attitudes toward time have been shaped by their nomadic Bedouin heritage, in
which precise time played no real role and arriving somewhere “tomorrow” might mean next week. Like Latin
Americans, many Saudis are unlikely to understand Westerners’ obsession with precise times and schedules.
Folkways also include rituals and symbolic behavior. Rituals and symbols are the most visible manifestations of a
culture and constitute the outward expression of deeper values. For example, upon meeting a foreign business executive,
a Japanese executive will hold his business card in both hands and bow while presenting the card to the foreigner.13 This
ritual behavior is loaded with deep cultural symbolism. The card specifies the rank of the Japanese executive, which is a
very important piece of information in a hierarchical society such as Japan. The bow is a sign of respect, and the deeper
the angle of the bow, the greater the reverence one person shows for the other. The person receiving the card is expected
to examine it carefully (Japanese often have business cards with Japanese printed on one side and English printed on the
other), which is a way of returning respect and acknowledging the card giver’s position in the hierarchy. The foreigner is
also expected to bow when taking the card and to return the greeting by presenting the Japanese executive with his or her
own card, similarly bowing in the process. To not do so and to fail to read the card that he or she has been given, instead
casually placing it in a jacket, pocket, or purse, violates this important folkway and is considered rude.
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Mores refer to norms that are more widely observed, have greater moral significance than folkways, and
are central to the functioning of a society and to its social life. Violating mores can bring serious retribution, ill will, and
the collapse of any business deal. Mores are often so important that they have been enacted into law. Mores, to use
extreme examples, include laws against theft, adultery, incest, and cannibalism. All advanced societies have laws against
theft and cannibalism, among other things, but in modern times not necessarily adultery. Many mores (and laws) differ
across cultures. In the United States, for example, drinking alcohol is widely accepted, whereas in Saudi Arabia the
consumption of alcohol is viewed as violating important social mores and is punishable by imprisonment (as some
Western citizens working in Saudi Arabia have discovered to their dismay). That said, countries like Saudi Arabia and
the United Arab Emirates are becoming more tolerant of Westerners behaving like Westerners in their countries—such
as when their Western comrades drink alcohol, as long as they do not flaunt it. Over time, mores may be implemented
differently depending on where you are and who you are, and it pays to know the difference.
CULTURE, SOCIETY, AND THE NATION-STATE
We have defined a society as a group of people who share a common set of values and norms; that is, people who are
bound together by a common culture. There is not a strict one-to-one correspondence between a society and a nationstate. Nation-states are political creations. While nation-states are often studied for their “national identity,” “national
character,” and even “competitive advantage of nations,” in reality they may contain a single culture or several
subcultures.14 The French nation can be thought of as the political embodiment of French culture. However, the nation
of Canada has a French culture too, and at least three core cultures—an Anglo culture, a French-speaking “Quebecois”
culture, and a Native American culture. Similarly, many of the 54 African nations have important cultural differences
among tribal groups, as horrifically exhibited in the early 1990s when Rwanda dissolved into a bloody civil war between
two tribes, the Tutsis and Hutus. Africa is not alone in this regard. India, for example, is composed of many distinct
cultural groups with their own rich history and traditions (e.g., Andhras, Gonds, Gujaratis, Marathas, Oriya, Rajputs,
Tamils).
Cultures can also embrace several nations, as with the Scandinavian countries of Denmark, Finland, Iceland,
Norway, and Sweden. These Scandinavian nations trace their cultural values and norms back centuries, and this cultural
mindset still resides in most Scandinavians. Next time you meet some Scandinavians, see if you can pick out which
country they are from! There is also a strong case for considering Islamic society a culture that is shared by citizens of
many different nations in the Middle East, Asia, and Africa. Of course, there are nuances to the Islamic world—those
who adhere to various degrees, or different elements, of Islam. As you will recall from Chapter 3, this view of expansive
cultures that embrace several nations underpins Samuel Huntington’s view of a world that is fragmented into different
civilizations, including Western, Islamic, and Sinic (Chinese) cultures.15 In fact, many international business scholars
make the culture argument as a way of saying that companies should not target countries in a multinational strategic
approach today, but instead focus on dividing up the world’s 195 countries into like-minded business regions.
To complicate things further, as we mentioned earlier, it is also possible to talk about culture at different levels
within a country. It is reasonable to talk about “American society” and “American culture,” but there are several societies
within America, each with its own culture. For example, in the United States, one can talk about African American
culture, Cajun culture, Chinese American culture, Hispanic culture, Indian culture, Irish American culture, Southern
culture, and many more cultural groups. In some way, this means that the relationship between culture and country is
often ambiguous. Even if a country can be characterized as having a single homogeneous culture, often that national
culture is a mosaic of subcultures (e.g., Singapore). To honor these cultural nuances, business people need to be Page 99
aware of the delicate issues that pertain to folkways, and they also need to make sure not to violate mores in the
country or culture in which they intend to do business. Increased globalization has meant an increased number of
business relationships across countries and cultures, but not necessarily an increased cultural understanding to go with it.
Culture is a complex phenomenon with multiple dimensions and multiple levels always worthy of study.16
DETERMINANTS OF CULTURE
LO4-2
Identify the forces that lead to differences in social culture.
The values and norms of a culture do not emerge fully formed. As we have explained, values and norms evolve over
time in response to a number of factors, including prevailing political and economic philosophies, the social structure of
a society, and the dominant religion, language, and education (see Figure 4.1). Ultimately, a culture forms when people’s
behaviors—as a result of these various influences—become ingrained in people’s daily activities, patterns, and ways of
doing things.
FIGURE 4.1 Determinants of culture.
We discussed political and economic philosophies in Chapter 2. Such philosophies clearly influence the value
systems of a society. For example, the values found in communist North Korea toward freedom, justice, and individual
achievement are clearly different from the opposite values found in Sweden, precisely because each society operates
according to different political and economic philosophies. In the next sections of this chapter, we discuss the influence
of social structure, religion, language, and education. The chain of causation runs both ways. While factors such as social
structure and religion clearly influence the values and norms of a society, the values and norms of a society can influence
social structure and religion. That means that people’s behaviors can lead to culture evolving, and the existing culture
also affects how people behave.
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Social Structure
A society’s social structure refers to its basic social organization. It indicates how a society is organized in terms of the
values, norms, and relationships that are part of its fabric. How society operates and how people, groups, and companies
treat each other both emerge from, and are determinants of, the behaviors of individuals in that specific society.
Two dimensions are particularly important when explaining differences across social structures (although many
dimensions exist beyond these two). The first is the degree to which the basic unit of a social organization is the
individual, as opposed to the group, or even company for which a person works. In general, Western societies Page 100
tend to emphasize the importance of the individual, whereas groups tend to figure much larger in many nonWestern societies. The second dimension is the degree to which a society is stratified into classes or castes. Some
societies are characterized by a relatively high degree of social stratification and relatively low mobility between strata
(India). Other societies are characterized by a low degree of social stratification and high mobility between strata (United
States).
INDIVIDUALS AND GROUPS
A group is an association of two or more individuals who have a shared sense of identity and who interact with each
other in structured ways on the basis of a common set of expectations about each other’s behavior.17 Human social life is
group life. Individuals are involved in families, work groups, social groups, recreational groups, and potentially myriad
other groups. Social media have expanded the boundaries of what is included in group life and placed an added emphasis
on extended social groups. Social media has unique possibilities that affect both individuals within a social group and the
group itself. For example, consumers are significantly more likely to buy from the brands they follow on Instagram,
Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn, or that they get exposed to via Snapchat, due to group influences. However, while
groups are found in all societies, some societies differ according to the degree to which the group is viewed as the
primary means of social organization.18 In some societies, individual attributes and achievements are viewed as being
more important than group membership; in others, the reverse is true.
The Individual
LO4-3
Identify the business and economic implications of differences in culture.
In Chapter 2, we discussed individualism as a political philosophy. However, individualism is more than just an abstract
political philosophy. In many societies, the individual is the basic building block of social organization. This is reflected
not just in the political and economic organization of society but also in the way people perceive themselves and relate to
each other in social and business settings. The value systems of many Western societies, for example, emphasize
individual achievement. The social standing of individuals is not so much a function of whom they work for as of their
individual performance in whatever work setting they choose. More and more, individuals are regarded as “independent
contractors” even though they belong to and work for a company. These individuals build their personal brands by
utilizing the knowledge, skills, and experience they have, which often translates to increased salaries and promotions or
another company seeking their employment, if they believe the company can benefit from that person’s capabilities. In
science, the label “star scientist” has become synonymous with these individual high-producers of innovative products
based on their knowledge, skills, and experience.19
The emphasis on individual performance has both potential beneficial and harmful aspects. In the United States, the
emphasis on individual performance finds expression in an admiration of rugged individualism, entrepreneurship, and
innovation. One benefit of this is the high level of entrepreneurial activity in the United States, in Europe, and throughout
many of the so-called developed nations. Over time, entrepreneurial individuals in the United States have created lots of
new products and new ways of doing business (personal computers, photocopiers, computer software, biotechnology,
supermarkets, discount retail stores, social media). One can argue that the dynamism of the U.S. economy owes much to
the philosophy of individualism. Highly individualistic societies are often synonymous with those capable of constantly
innovating by having a flowing stream of creative ideas for new products and services.
Individualism also finds expression in a high degree of managerial mobility between companies, as our “personal
brand” example illustrated earlier, and this is not always a good thing. Although moving from company to company may
be good for individual managers who are trying to build impressive résumés and increase their salaries, it is not
necessarily a good thing for companies. The lack of loyalty and commitment to a company and the tendency to move on
for a better offer can result in managers who have good general skills but lack the knowledge, experience, and Page 101
network of contacts that come from years of working for the same company. An effective manager draws on
company-specific experience, knowledge, and a network of contacts to find solutions to current problems, and
companies may suffer if their managers lack these attributes. One positive aspect of high managerial mobility, however,
is that executives are exposed to different ways of doing business. The ability to compare business practices helps
executives identify how good practices and techniques developed in one firm might be profitably applied to other firms.
The Group
In contrast to the Western emphasis on the individual, the group is the primary unit of social organization in many other
societies. For example, in Japan, the social status of an individual has traditionally been determined as much by the
standing of the group to which he or she belongs as by his or her individual performance.20 In traditional Japanese
society, the group was the family or village to which an individual belonged. Today, the group has frequently come to be
associated with the work team or business organization. In a now-classic study of Japanese society, Nakane noted how
this expresses itself in everyday life:
When a Japanese faces the outside (confronts another person) and affixes some position to himself socially he is inclined to give
precedence to institution over kind of occupation. Rather than saying, “I am a typesetter” or “I am a filing clerk,” he is likely to
say, “I am from B Publishing Group” or “I belong to S company.”21
Nakane goes on to observe that the primacy of the group often evolves into a deeply emotional attachment in which
identification with the group becomes very important in a person’s life. For example, as a student, you will often identify
yourself as going to a specific university or, soon enough, as a graduate of that university—and the latter identification as
an alumnus is something you will carry with you for life. In many cases, we also extend that group thinking beyond a
company, organization, or university. For example, we talk about being part of a university-related conference—for
example, “I’m going to Michigan State University, and we are part of the Big Ten Conference.” Or, “I’m going to the
University of Washington, and we are part of the Pac-12 Conference.”
At the country level, one central value of Japanese culture is the importance attached to group membership. This
may have beneficial implications for business firms. Strong identification with the group is argued to create pressures for
mutual self-help and collective action. If the worth of an individual is closely linked to the achievements of the group, as
Nakane maintains is the case in Japan, this creates a strong incentive for individual members of the group to work
together for the common good. Some argue that the success of Japanese companies in the global economy has been
based partly on their ability to achieve close cooperation between individuals within a company and between companies.
This has found expression in the widespread diffusion of self-managing work teams within Japanese organizations; the
close cooperation among different functions within Japanese companies (e.g., among manufacturing, marketing, and
R&D); and the cooperation between a company and its suppliers on issues such as design, quality control, and inventory
reduction.22 In all these cases, cooperation is driven by the need to improve the performance of the group.
The primacy of the value of group identification also discourages managers and other workers from moving from
one company to another. Lifetime employment in a particular company was long the norm in certain sectors of the
Japanese economy (estimates suggest that between 20 and 40 percent of all Japanese employees have formal or informal
lifetime employment guarantees), albeit those norms have changed significantly in recent decades, with much more
movement being seen between companies. Over the years, managers and workers build up knowledge, experience, and a
network of interpersonal business contacts. All these things can help managers perform their jobs more effectively and
achieve cooperation with others.
Page 102
However, the primacy of the group is not always beneficial. Just as U.S. society is characterized by a
great deal of entrepreneurship, reflecting the primacy of values associated with individualism, some argue that Japanese
society is characterized by a corresponding lack of entrepreneurship. Although the long-run consequences are unclear,
one implication is that the United States could continue to create more new industries than Japan and continue to be more
successful at pioneering radically new products and new ways of doing business. By most estimates, the United States
has led the world in innovation for some time, especially radically new products and services, and the country’s
individualism is a strong contributor to this innovative mindset. At the same time, some group-oriented countries, such as
Japan, do very well in innovation also, especially non-radical “normal” innovations, according to the GE Global
Innovation Barometer.23 This is an indication that multiple paths to being innovative exist in both individualistic and
group-oriented cultures, drawing from the uniqueness of the particular culture and what core competencies are reflected
in the culture.24 Some argue that individualistic societies are great at creating innovative ideas while collectivist, or
group-oriented, societies are better at the implementation of those ideas (taking the idea to the market).
SOCIAL STRATIFICATION
LO4-2
Identify the forces that lead to differences in social culture.
All societies are stratified on a hierarchical basis into social categories—that is, into social strata. These strata are
typically defined on the basis of socioeconomic characteristics such as family background, occupation, and income.
Individuals are born into a particular stratum. They become a member of the social category to which their parents
belong. Individuals born into a stratum toward the top of the social hierarchy tend to have better life chances than those
born into a stratum toward the bottom of the hierarchy. They are likely to have better education, health, standard of
living, and work opportunities. Although all societies are stratified to some degree, they differ in two related ways. First,
they differ from each other with regard to the degree of mobility between social strata. Second, they differ with regard to
the significance attached to social strata in business contexts. Overall, social stratification is based on four basic
principles:25
1. Social stratification is a trait of society, not a reflection of individual differences.
2. Social stratification carries over a generation to the next generation.
3. Social stratification is generally universal but variable.
4. Social stratification involves not just inequality but also beliefs.
Social Mobility
The term social mobility refers to the extent to which individuals can move out of the strata into which they are born.
Social mobility varies significantly from society to society. The most rigid system of stratification is a caste system. A
caste system is a closed system of stratification in which social position is determined by the family into which a person
is born, and change in that position is usually not possible during an individual’s lifetime. Often, a caste position carries
with it a specific occupation. Members of one caste might be shoemakers, members of another might be butchers, and so
on. These occupations are embedded in the caste and passed down through the family to succeeding generations.
Although the number of societies with caste systems diminished rapidly during the twentieth century, one partial
example still remains. India has four main castes and several thousand subcastes. Even though the caste system was
officially abolished in 1949, two years after India became independent, it is still a force in rural Indian society where
occupation and marital opportunities are still partly related to caste (for more details, see the accompanying Country
Focus on the caste system in India today, “Determining Your Social Class by Birth”).26
A class system is a less rigid form of social stratification in which social mobility is possible. It is a form of open
stratification in which the position a person has by birth can be changed through his or her own achievements or luck.
Individuals born into a class at the bottom of the hierarchy can work their way up; conversely, individuals born Page 103
into a class at the top of the hierarchy can slip down.
COUNTRY FOCUS
Determining Your Social Class by Birth
Modern India is a country of dramatic contrasts. The country’s information technology (IT) sector is among the most vibrant in the
world, with companies such as Tata Consultancy Services, Cognizant Technology Solutions, Infosys, and Wipro as powerful
global players. Cognizant is an interesting company in that it was founded as a technology arm of Dun & Bradstreet (USA), but it
is typically considered an Indian IT company because a majority of its employees are based in India. In fact, many IT companies
locate or operate in India because of its strong IT knowledge, human capital, and culture.
Traditionally, India has had one of the strongest caste systems in the world. Somewhat sadly, as a British author, this caste
system still exists today even though it was officially abolished in 1949, and many Indians actually prefer it this way! At the core,
the caste system has no legality in India, and discrimination against lower castes is illegal. India has also enacted numerous new
laws and social initiatives to protect and improve living conditions of lower castes in the country.
Prior to 1949, India’s caste system was definitely an impediment to social mobility, and some say it remains difficult to move
across castes. But the stranglehold on people’s socioeconomic conditions is becoming a fading memory among the educated, urban
middle-class Indians who make up the majority of employees in the high-tech economy. Unfortunately, the same is not true in
rural India, where some 64 percent of the nation’s population still resides. In the rural part of the country, the caste remains a
pervasive influence.
For example, a young female engineer at Infosys, who grew up in a small rural village and is a dalit (sometimes called a
“scheduled caste”), recounts how she never entered the house of a Brahmin, India’s elite priestly caste, even though half of her
village were Brahmins. And when a dalit was hired to cook at the school in her native village, Brahmins withdrew their children
from the school. The engineer herself is the beneficiary of a charitable training scheme developed by Infosys. Her caste, making up
about 16 percent of the country (or around 212 million people), is among the poorest in India, with some 91 percent making less
than $100 a month.
To try to correct this historical inequality, politicians have talked for years about extending the employment quota system to
private enterprises. The government has told private companies to hire more dalits and members of tribal communities and have
been warned that “strong measures” will be taken if companies do not comply. Private employers are resisting attempts to impose
quotas, arguing with some justification that people who are guaranteed a job by a quota system are unlikely to work very hard.
At the same time, progressive employers realize they need to do something to correct the inequalities, and unless India taps
into the lower castes, it may not be able to find the employees required to staff rapidly growing high-technology enterprises. As a
consequence, the Confederation of Indian Industry implemented a package of dalit-friendly measures, including scholarships for
bright lower-caste children. Building on this, Infosys is leading the way among high-tech enterprises. The company provides
special training to low-caste engineering graduates who have failed to get a job in industry after graduation. While the training
does not promise employment, so far almost all graduates who completed the seven-month training program have been hired by
Infosys and other enterprises. Positively, Infosys programs are a privatized version of the education offered in India to try to break
down India’s caste system.
Sources: Mari Marcel Thekaekara, “India’s Caste System Is Alive and Kicking—and Maiming and Killing,” The Guardian, August 15, 2016; Noah Feldman, “India’s High
Court Favors Nationalism over Democracy,” Bloomberg View, January 8, 2017; “Why Some of India’s Castes Demand to Be Reclassified,” The Economist, February 16,
2016.
While many societies have class systems, social mobility within a class system also varies from society to society.
For example, some sociologists have argued that the United Kingdom has a more rigid class structure than certain other
Western societies, such as the United States.27 Historically, British society was divided into three main classes: the upper
class, which was made up of individuals whose families for generations had wealth, prestige, and occasionally Page 104
power; the middle class, whose members were involved in professional, managerial, and clerical occupations;
and the working class, whose members earned their living from manual occupations. The middle class was further
subdivided into the upper-middle class, whose members were involved in important managerial occupations and the
prestigious professions (lawyers, accountants, doctors), and the lower-middle class, whose members were involved in
clerical work (bank tellers) and the less prestigious professions (school teachers).
The British class system exhibited significant divergence between the life chances of members of different classes.
The upper and upper-middle classes typically sent their children to a select group of private schools, where they would
not mix with lower-class children and where they picked up many of the speech accents and social norms that marked
them as being from the higher strata of society. These same private schools also had close ties with the most prestigious
universities, such as Oxford and Cambridge. Until fairly recently, Oxford and Cambridge guaranteed a certain number of
places for the graduates of these private schools. Having been to a prestigious university, the offspring of the upper and
upper-middle classes then had an excellent chance of being offered a prestigious job in companies, banks, brokerage
firms, and law firms run by members of the upper and upper-middle classes.
Modern British society is now rapidly leaving behind this class structure and moving toward more of a classless
society. However, sociologists continue to dispute this finding. For example, one study reported that state schools in the
London Borough (suburb) of Islington, which now has a population of 230,000, had only 79 candidates for university,
while one prestigious private school alone, Eton, sent more than that number to Oxford and Cambridge.28 This,
according to the study’s authors, implies that “money still begets money.” They argue that a good school means a good
university, a good university means a good job, and merit has only a limited chance of elbowing its way into this tight
circle. In another survey, a sociologist noted that class differentials in educational achievement have changed
surprisingly little over the last few decades in many societies, despite assumptions to the contrary.29
Another society for which class divisions have historically been of some importance has been China, where there
has been a long-standing difference between the life chances of the rural peasantry and urban dwellers. Ironically, this
historic division was strengthened during the high point of communist rule because of a rigid system of household
registration that restricted most Chinese to the place of their birth for their lifetime. Bound to collective farming, peasants
were cut off from many urban privileges—compulsory education, quality schools, health care, public housing, even
varieties of food, to name only a few—and they largely lived in poverty. Social mobility was very limited. This system
crumbled following the reforms of a few decades ago, and as a consequence, migrant peasant laborers have flooded into
China’s cities looking for work. Sociologists now hypothesize that a new class system is emerging in China based less on
the rural–urban divide and more on urban occupation.30
The class system in the United States is less pronounced than in India, the United Kingdom, and China and mobility
is greater. Like the UK, the United States has its own upper, middle, and working classes. However, class membership is
determined to a much greater degree by individual economic achievements, as opposed to background and schooling.
Thus, an individual can, by his or her own economic achievement, move smoothly from the working class to the upper
class in a lifetime. Successful individuals from humble origins are highly respected in American society. Part of the
admiration comes from entrepreneurs in the United States who have done exceedingly well creating and marketing their
products, services, and ideas (e.g., Andrew Carnegie, Henry Ford, Oprah Winfrey, Bill Gates, and Larry Page).
Significance
LO4-3
Identify the business and economic implications of differences in culture.
From a business perspective, the stratification of a society is significant if it affects the operations of companies. In
American society, the high degree of social mobility and the extreme emphasis on individualism limit the impact of class
background on business operations. The same is true in Japan, where most of the population perceives itself to be middle
class. In a country such as the United Kingdom or India, however, the relative lack of class mobility and the Page 105
differences between classes have resulted in the emergence of class consciousness. Class consciousness refers
to a condition by which people tend to perceive themselves in terms of their class background, and this shapes their
relationships with members of other classes.
This has been played out in British society in the traditional hostility between upper-middle-class managers and
their working-class employees. Mutual antagonism and lack of respect historically made it difficult to achieve
cooperation between management and labor in many British companies and resulted in a relatively high level of
industrial disputes. However, the past two decades have seen a dramatic reduction in industrial disputes, which bolsters
the arguments of those who claim that the country is moving toward a classless society. Interestingly, some argue that the
United Kingdom leaving the European Union (“Brexit”) has become a class-related negotiation and outcome that may
take the Brits decades to solve effectively. Also, as noted earlier, class consciousness may be reemerging in urban China,
and may ultimately prove significant in the country.
Overall, an antagonistic relationship between management and labor classes, and the resulting lack of cooperation
and high level of industrial disruption, tends to raise the costs of production in countries characterized by significant
class divisions. This can make it more difficult for companies based in such countries to establish a competitive
advantage in the global economy. China has seen a slowdown in its economy, Britain is engulfed in Brexit repercussions,
the United States faces nationalistic tendencies, and India still practices a caste system that limits mobility. These are not
historical artifacts; they are here and now and companies need to strategically plan accordingly.
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Religious and Ethical Systems
LO4-2
Identify the forces that lead to differences in social culture.
Religion may be defined as a system of shared beliefs and rituals that are concerned with the realm of the sacred.31 An
ethical system refers to a set of moral principles, or values, that are used to guide and shape behavior.32 Most of the
world’s ethical systems are the product of religions. Thus, we can talk about Christian ethics and Islamic ethics.
However, there is a major exception to the principle that ethical systems are grounded in religion. Confucianism and
Confucian ethics influence behavior and shape culture in parts of Asia, yet it is incorrect to characterize Confucianism as
a religion.
The relationship among religion, ethics, and society is subtle and complex. Of the thousands of religions in the
world today, four dominate in terms of numbers of adherents: Christianity with roughly 2.20 billion adherents, Islam
with around 1.60 billion adherents, Hinduism with 1.10 billion adherents (primarily in India), and Buddhism with about
535 million adherents (see Map 4.1). Although many other religions have an important influence in certain parts of the
modern world (e.g., Shintoism in Japan, with roughly 40 million followers, and Judaism, which has 18 million adherents
and accounts for 75 percent of the population of Israel), their numbers pale in comparison with these dominant religions.
We review these four religions, along with Confucianism, focusing on their potential business implications.
MAP 4.1 World religions.
Source: “Map 14,” in Allen, John L., and Sutton, Christopher J., Student Atlas of World Politics, 10th ed. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 2013.
Some scholars have theorized that the most important business implications of religion center on the extent to
which different religions shape attitudes toward work and entrepreneurship and the degree to which religious ethics
affect the costs of doing business. However, it is hazardous to make sweeping generalizations about the nature of the
relationship among religion, ethical systems, and business practice. Nations with Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, Hindu,
and Buddhist majorities all show evidence of entrepreneurial activity and economic growth in various ways.
Interestingly, research by economists Robert Barro and Rachel McCleary suggest that strong religious beliefs,
particularly beliefs in heaven, hell, and an afterlife, have a positive impact on economic growth rates, irrespective of the
particular religion in question.33 Barro and McCleary looked at religious beliefs and economic growth rates in 59
countries. Their conclusion was that higher religious beliefs stimulate economic growth because they help Page 106
sustain aspects of individual behavior that lead to higher productivity. At the same time, other professionals
suggest such economic growth is a function of sound economic policy and not necessarily religions or religious ethics.
CHRISTIANITY
Christianity is the most widely practiced religion in the world, with some 2.20 billion followers. The vast majority of
Christians live in Europe and the Americas, although their numbers are growing rapidly in Africa. Christianity grew out
of Judaism. Like Judaism, it is a monotheistic religion (monotheism is the belief in one God). A religious division in the
eleventh century led to the establishment of two major Christian organizations: the Roman Catholic Church and the
Orthodox Church. Today, the Roman Catholic Church accounts for more than half of all Christians, most of whom are
found in southern Europe and Latin America. The Orthodox Church, while less influential, is still of major importance in
several countries (especially Greece and Russia). In the sixteenth century, the Reformation led to a further split with
Rome; the result was Protestantism. The nonconformist nature of Protestantism has facilitated the emergence of
numerous denominations under the Protestant umbrella (Baptist, Methodist, Calvinist, and so on).
Page 107
Economic Implications of Christianity
LO4-3
Identify the business and economic implications of differences in culture.
Several sociologists have argued that, of the main branches of Christianity—Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant—the
latter has the most important economic implications. In 1904, prominent German sociologist Max Weber made a
connection between Protestant ethics and “the spirit of capitalism” that has since become legendary.34 Weber noted that
capitalism emerged in Western Europe, where
business leaders and owners of capital, as well as the higher grades of skilled labor, and even more the higher technically and
commercially trained personnel of modern enterprises, are overwhelmingly Protestant.35
Weber theorized that there was a relationship between Protestantism and the emergence of capitalism. He argued
that Protestant ethics emphasizes the importance of hard work and wealth creation (for the glory of God) and frugality
(abstinence from worldly pleasures). According to Weber, this kind of value system was needed to facilitate the
development of capitalism. Protestants worked hard and systematically to accumulate wealth. Their ascetic beliefs
suggested that rather than consuming the wealth by indulging in worldly pleasures, they should invest it in the expansion
of capitalist enterprises. Thus, the combination of hard work and the accumulation of capital, which could be used to
finance investment and expansion, paved the way for the development of capitalism in Western Europe and subsequently
in the United States. In contrast, Weber argued that the Catholic promise of salvation in the next world, rather than this
world, did not foster the same kind of work ethic.
Protestantism also may have encouraged capitalism’s development in another way. By breaking away from the
hierarchical domination of religious and social life that characterized the Catholic Church for much of its history,
Protestantism gave individuals more freedom to develop their own relationship with God. The right to freedom of form
of worship was central to the nonconformist nature of early Protestantism. This emphasis on individual religious freedom
may have paved the way for the subsequent emphasis on individual economic and political freedoms and the
development of individualism as an economic and political philosophy. As we saw in Chapter 2, such a philosophy
forms the bedrock on which entrepreneurial free market capitalism is based. Building on this, some scholars claim there
is a connection between individualism, as inspired by Protestantism, and the extent of entrepreneurial activity in a
nation.36 Again, we must be careful not to generalize too much from this historical sociological view. While nations with
a strong Protestant tradition such as Britain, Germany, and the United States were early leaders in the Industrial
Revolution, nations with Catholic or Orthodox majorities show significant and sustained entrepreneurial activity and
economic growth in the modern world.
ISLAM
LO4-2
Identify the forces that lead to differences in social culture.
With about 1.60 billion adherents, Islam is the second largest of the world’s major religions. Islam dates to 610 a.d. when
the Prophet Muhammad began spreading the word, although the Muslim calendar begins in 622 a.d. when, to escape
growing opposition, Muhammad left Mecca for the oasis settlement of Yathrib, later known as Medina. Adherents of
Islam are referred to as Muslims. Muslims constitute a majority in more than 40 countries and inhabit a nearly
contiguous stretch of land from the northwest coast of Africa, through the Middle East, to China and Malaysia in the Far
East.
Islam has roots in both Judaism and Christianity (Islam views Jesus Christ as one of God’s prophets). Like
Christianity and Judaism, Islam is a monotheistic religion. The central principle of Islam is that there is but the one true
omnipotent God (Allah). Islam requires unconditional acceptance of the uniqueness, power, and authority of God and the
understanding that the objective of life is to fulfill the dictates of His will in the hope of admission to paradise.
According to Islam, worldly gain and temporal power are an illusion. Those who pursue riches on earth may gain them,
but those who forgo worldly ambitions to seek the favor of Allah may gain the greater treasure: entry into Page 108
paradise. Other major principles of Islam include (1) honoring and respecting parents, (2) respecting the rights
of others, (3) being generous but not a squanderer, (4) avoiding killing except for justifiable causes, (5) not committing
adultery, (6) dealing justly and equitably with others, (7) being of pure heart and mind, (8) safeguarding the possessions
of orphans, and (9) being humble and unpretentious.37 Parallels exist with central principles of Judaism and Christianity.
Islam is an all-embracing way of life governing the totality of a Muslim’s being.38 As God’s surrogate in this
world, a Muslim is not a totally free agent, but is circumscribed by religious principles—by a code of conduct for
interpersonal relations—in social and economic activities. Religion is paramount in all areas of life. A Muslim lives in a
social structure that is shaped by Islamic values and norms of moral conduct. The ritual of everyday life in a Muslim
country is striking to a Western visitor. Among other things, orthodox Muslim ritual requires prayer five times a day
(business meetings may be put on hold while the Muslim participants engage in their daily prayer ritual), demands that
women should be dressed in a certain manner, and forbids the consumption of pork and alcohol.
Islamic Fundamentalism
The past three decades, in particular, have witnessed the growth of a social movement often referred to as Islamic
fundamentalism.39 In the West, Islamic fundamentalism is associated with militants, terrorists, and violent upheavals,
such as the bloody conflict in Algeria, the killing of foreign tourists in Egypt, and the September 11, 2001, attacks on the
World Trade Center and Pentagon in the United States. For most, this characterization is misleading. Just as Christian
fundamentalists are motivated by deeply held religious values that are firmly rooted in their faith, so are Islamic
fundamentalists.
A small minority of radical “fundamentalists” who have hijacked the religion to further their own political and
violent ends perpetrate the violence that the Western media associates with Islamic fundamentalism. Radical Islamic
fundamentalists exist in various forms today, but the most notorious is probably ISIS—an acronym for Islamic State of
Iraq and Syria. Now, the violence associated with radical Islamic fundamentalists can be seen across other religions as
well. Some Christian “fundamentalists” have incited their own political engagement and violence. The vast majority of
Muslims point out that Islam teaches peace, justice, and tolerance, not violence and intolerance. In fact, the foundation is
that Islam explicitly repudiates the violence that a radical minority practices.
The rise of Islamic fundamentalism has no one cause. In part, it is a response to the social pressures created in
traditional Islamic societies by the move toward modernization and by the influence of Western ideas, such as liberal
democracy; materialism; equal rights for women; and attitudes toward sex, marriage, and alcohol. In many Muslim
countries, modernization has been accompanied by a growing gap between a rich urban minority and an impoverished
urban and rural majority. For the impoverished majority, modernization has offered little in the way of tangible economic
progress, while threatening the traditional value system. Thus, for a Muslim who cherishes his or her traditions and feels
that their identity is jeopardized by the encroachment of Western values, Islamic fundamentalism is a cultural anchor.
Fundamentalists demand a commitment to strict religious beliefs and rituals. The result has been a marked increase
in the use of symbolic gestures that confirm Islamic values. In areas where fundamentalism is strong, women have
resumed wearing floor-length, long-sleeved dresses and covering their hair; religious studies have increased in
universities; the publication of religious tracts has increased; and public religious orations have risen.40 Also, the
sentiments of some fundamentalist groups are often anti-Western. Rightly or wrongly, Western influence is blamed for a
range of social ills, and many fundamentalists’ actions are directed against Western governments, cultural Page 109
symbols, businesses, and individuals.
In several Muslim countries, fundamentalists have gained political power and have used this to try to make Islamic
law the law of the land (as set down in the Koran, the bible of Islam). There are grounds for this in Islamic doctrine.
Islam makes no distinction between church and state. It is not just a religion; Islam is also the source of law, a guide to
statecraft, and an arbiter of social behavior. Muslims believe that every human endeavor is within the purview of their
faith—and this includes political activity—because the only purpose of any activity is to do God’s will.41 Muslim
fundamentalists have been most successful in Iran, where a fundamentalist party has held power since 1979, but they
also have had an influence in many other countries, such as Afghanistan, Algeria, Egypt, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and
Sudan.
Economic Implications of Islam
LO4-3
Identify the business and economic implications of differences in culture.
The Koran establishes some explicit economic principles, many of which are pro-free enterprise.42 The Koran speaks
approvingly of free enterprise and earning profit through trade and commerce (the Prophet Muhammad himself was once
a trader). The protection of the right to private property is also embedded within Islam, although Islam asserts that all
property is a favor from Allah (God), who created and so owns everything. Those who hold property are regarded as
trustees rather than owners. As trustees, they are entitled to receive profits from the property but are admonished to use it
in a righteous, socially beneficial, and prudent manner. This reflects Islam’s concern with social justice. Islam is critical
of those who earn profit through the exploitation of others. In the Islamic view, humans are part of a collective in which
the wealthy have obligations to help the disadvantaged. In Muslim countries, it is fine to earn a profit, so long as that
profit is justly earned and not based on the exploitation of others. It also helps if those making profits undertake
charitable acts to help the poor. Furthermore, Islam stresses the importance of living up to contractual obligations,
keeping one’s word, and abstaining from deception. For a closer look at how Islam, capitalism, and globalization can
coexist, see the accompanying Country Focus on the region around Kayseri in central Turkey.
Given the Islamic proclivity to favor market-based systems, Muslim countries are likely to be receptive to
international businesses as long as those businesses behave in a manner that is consistent with Islamic ethics, customs,
and business practices. But, in Islamic countries where fundamentalism is on the rise, general hostility toward Westernowned businesses is also likely to increase. When foreigners are involved in predominantly Muslim countries, one
unique economic principle of Islam can come into play. Islam prohibits the payment or receipt of interest, which is
considered illegal. This is not just a matter of theology; in several Islamic states, it is also a matter of law. The Koran
clearly condemns interest, which is called riba in Arabic, as exploitative and unjust. For many years, banks operating in
Islamic countries conveniently ignored this condemnation, but starting in the 1970s with the establishment of an Islamic
bank in Egypt, Islamic banks opened in predominantly Muslim countries. Now there are hundreds of Islamic banks in
more than 50 countries with assets of around $1.6 trillion; plus more than $1 trillion is managed by mutual funds that
adhere to Islamic principles.43 Even conventional banks are entering the market: both Citigroup and HSBC, two of the
world’s largest financial institutions, now offer Islamic financial services. While only Iran and Sudan enforce Islamic
banking conventions, in an increasing number of countries customers can choose between conventional banks and
Islamic banks.
Conventional banks make a profit on the spread between the interest rate they have to pay to depositors and the
higher interest rate they charge borrowers. Because Islamic banks cannot pay or charge interest, they must find a
different way of making money. Islamic banks have experimented with two different banking methods—the mudarabah
and the murabaha.44
Page 110
COUNTRY FOCUS
Turkey, Its Religion, and Politics
For years now, Turkey has been lobbying the European Union to allow it to join the free trade bloc as a member state. Even as
grumblings take place in some EU countries about leaving (e.g., Brexit), Turkey is all in to join if it can. If the EU says yes, it will
be the first Muslim state in the European Union. But this is unlikely to happen any time soon; after all, it has been half a century in
the making!
Many critics in the EU worry that Islam and Western-style capitalism do not mix well and that, as a consequence, allowing
Turkey into the EU would be a mistake. However, a close look at what is going on in Turkey suggests this view may be misplaced.
Consider the area around the city of Kayseri in central Turkey. Many dismiss this poor, largely agricultural region of Turkey as a
non-European backwater, far removed from the secular bustle of Istanbul. It is a region where traditional Islamic values hold sway.
And yet it is a region that has produced so many thriving Muslim enterprises that it is sometimes called the “Anatolian Tiger.”
Businesses based here include large food manufacturers, textile companies, furniture manufacturers, and engineering enterprises,
many of which export a substantial percentage of their production.
Local business leaders attribute the success of companies in the region to an entrepreneurial spirit that they say is part of
Islam. They point out that the Prophet Muhammad, who was himself a trader, preached merchant honor and commanded that 90
percent of a Muslim’s life be devoted to work in order to put food on the table. Outside observers have gone further, arguing that
what is occurring around Kayseri is an example of Islamic Calvinism, a fusion of traditional Islamic values and the work ethic
often associated with Protestantism in general and Calvinism in particular.
However, not everyone agrees that Islam is the driving force behind the region’s success. Saffet Arslan, the managing director
of Ipek, the largest furniture producer in the region (which exports to more than 30 countries), says another force is at work:
globalization! According to Arslan, over the past three decades, local Muslims who once eschewed making money in favor of
focusing on religion are now making business a priority. They see the Western world, and Western capitalism, as a model, not
Islam, and because of globalization and the opportunities associated with it, they want to become successful.
If there is a weakness in the Islamic model of business that is emerging in places such as Kayseri, some say it can be found in
traditional attitudes toward the role of women in the workplace and the low level of female employment in the region. According
to a report by the European Stability Initiative, the same group that holds up the Kayseri region as an example of Islamic
Calvinism, the low participation of women in the local workforce is the Achilles’ heel of the economy and may stymie the
attempts of the region to catch up with the countries of the European Union.
Sources: Marc Champion, “Turkey’s President Is Close to Getting What He’s Always Wanted,” Bloomberg BusinessWeek, February 8, 2017; “Dress in a Muslim Country:
Turkey Covers Up,” The Economist, January 26, 2017; “Turkey’s Future Forward to the Past: Can Turkey’s Past Glories Be Revived by Its Grandiose Islamist President?”
The Economist, January 3, 2015.
A mudarabah contract is similar to a profit-sharing scheme. Under mudarabah, when an Islamic bank lends money
to a business, rather than charging interest, it takes a share in the profits that are derived from the investment. Similarly,
when a business (or individual) deposits money at an Islamic bank, the deposit is treated as an equity in whatever activity
the bank uses the capital for to invest. Thus, the depositor receives a share in the profit from the bank’s investment (as
opposed to interest payments) according to an agreed-upon ratio. Some Muslims claim this is a more efficient system
than the Western banking system because it encourages both long-term savings and long-term investment. However,
there is no hard evidence of this, and many believe that a mudarabah system is less efficient than a conventional Western
banking system.
Glow Images
Page 111
global EDGE CULTURE ON GLOBALEDGE
The “Culture” section of globalEDGE™ (globaledge.msu.edu/global-resources/culture) offers a variety of sources, information, and data
on culture and international business. In addition, the “Insights by Country” section (globaledge.msu.edu/global-insights/by/country),
with coverage of more than 200 countries and territories, has culture coverage (e.g., what to do and not do when visiting a country). In
this chapter, we cover a lot of material on culture, and Geert Hofstede’s research has been the most influential on culture and business for
about half a century. globalEDGE™ has “The Hofstede Centre” as one of its cultural reference sources. This reference focuses on
Hofstede’s research on cultural dimensions, including scores for countries, regions, charts, and graphs. Are you interested in the scores
for a country that we do not illustrate in Table 4.1? If so, check out “The Hofstede Centre” and its “Culture Compass,” and see what the
scores are for your favored country.
TABLE 4.1 Work-Related Values for 15 Selected Countries
Source: Hofstede Insights; www.hofstede-insights.com/product/compare-countries, Accessed March 7, 2019.
The second Islamic banking method, the murabaha contract, is the most widely used among the world’s Islamic
banks, primarily because it is the easiest to implement. In a murabaha contract, when a firm wishes to purchase
something using a loan—let’s say a piece of equipment that costs $1,000—the firm tells the bank after having negotiated
the price with the equipment manufacturer. The bank then buys the equipment for $1,000, and the borrower buys it back
from the bank at some later date for, say, $1,100, a price that includes a $100 markup for the bank. A cynic might point
out that such a markup is functionally equivalent to an interest payment, and it is the similarity between this method and
conventional banking that makes it so much easier to adopt.
HINDUISM
LO4-2
Identify the forces that lead to differences in social culture.
Hinduism has approximately 1.10 billion adherents, most of them on the Indian subcontinent. Hinduism began in the
Indus Valley in India more than 4,000 years ago, making it the world’s oldest major religion. Unlike Christianity and
Islam, its founding is not linked to a particular person. Nor does it have an officially sanctioned sacred book such as the
Bible or the Koran. Hindus believe that a moral force in society requires the acceptance of certain responsibilities, called
dharma. Hindus believe in reincarnation, or rebirth into a different body, after death. Hindus also believe in karma, the
spiritual progression of each person’s soul. A person’s karma is affected by the way he or she lives. The moral state of an
individual’s karma determines the challenges he or she will face in the next life. By perfecting the soul in each new life,
Hindus believe that an individual can eventually achieve nirvana, a state of complete spiritual perfection that renders
reincarnation no longer necessary. Many Hindus believe that the way to achieve nirvana is to lead a severe ascetic
lifestyle of material and physical self-denial, devoting life to a spiritual rather than material quest.
Economic Implications of Hinduism
LO4-3
Identify the business and economic implications of differences in culture.
Max Weber, famous for expounding on the Protestant work ethic, also argued that the ascetic principles embedded in
Hinduism do not encourage the kind of entrepreneurial activity in pursuit of wealth creation that we find in
Protestantism.45 According to Weber, traditional Hindu values emphasize that individuals should be judged not by their
material achievements but by their spiritual achievements. Hindus perceive the pursuit of material well-being as making
the attainment of nirvana more difficult. Given the emphasis on an ascetic lifestyle, Weber thought that devout Hindus
would be less likely to engage in entrepreneurial activity than devout Protestants.
Page 112
Mahatma Gandhi, the famous Indian nationalist and spiritual leader, was certainly the embodiment of
Hindu asceticism. It has been argued that the values of Hindu asceticism and self-reliance that Gandhi advocated had a
negative impact on the economic development of post-independence India.46 But we must be careful not to read too
much into Weber’s rather old arguments. Modern India is a very dynamic entrepreneurial society, and millions of
hardworking entrepreneurs form the economic backbone of the country’s rapidly growing economy, especially in the
information technology sector.47
Historically, Hinduism also supported India’s caste system. The concept of mobility between castes within an
individual’s lifetime makes no sense to traditional Hindus. Hindus see mobility between castes as something that is
achieved through spiritual progression and reincarnation. An individual can be reborn into a higher caste in his or her
next life if he or she achieves spiritual development in this life. Although the caste system has been abolished in India, as
discussed earlier in the chapter, it still casts a long shadow over Indian life.
BUDDHISM
LO4-2
Identify the forces that lead to differences in social culture.
Buddhism, with some 535 million adherents, was founded in the sixth century b.c. by Siddhartha Gautama in what is now
Nepal. Siddhartha renounced his wealth to pursue an ascetic lifestyle and spiritual perfection. His adherents claimed he
achieved nirvana but decided to remain on earth to teach his followers how they, too, could achieve this state of spiritual
enlightenment. Siddhartha became known as the Buddha (which means “the awakened one”). Today, most Buddhists are
found in Central and Southeast Asia, China, Korea, and Japan. According to Buddhism, suffering originates in people’s
desires for pleasure. Cessation of suffering can be achieved by following a path for transformation. Siddhartha offered
the Noble Eightfold Path as a route for transformation. This emphasizes right seeing, thinking, speech, action, living,
effort, mindfulness, and meditation. Unlike Hinduism, Buddhism does not support the caste system. Nor does Buddhism
advocate the kind of extreme ascetic behavior that is encouraged by Hinduism. Nevertheless, like Hindus, Buddhists
stress the afterlife and spiritual achievement rather than involvement in this world.
Economic Implications of Buddhism
LO4-3
Identify the business and economic implications of differences in culture.
The emphasis on wealth creation that is embedded in Protestantism is historically not found in Buddhism. Thus, in
Buddhist societies, we do not see the same kind of cultural stress on entrepreneurial behavior that Weber claimed could
be found in the Protestant West. But unlike Hinduism, the lack of support for the caste system and extreme ascetic
behavior suggests that a Buddhist society may represent a more fertile ground for entrepreneurial activity than a Hindu
culture. In effect, innovative ideas and entrepreneurial activities may take hold throughout society independent of which
caste a person may belong to, but again, each culture is uniquely oriented toward its own types of entrepreneurial
behavior.
In Buddhism, societies were historically more deeply rooted to their local place in the natural world.48 This means
that economies were more localized, with relations between people and also between culture and nature being relatively
unmediated. In the modern economy, complex technologies and large-scale social institutions have led to a separation
between people and also between people and the natural world. Plus, as the economy grows, it is difficult to understand
and appreciate the potential effects people have on the natural world. Both of these separations are antithetical to the
Buddha’s teachings.
Interestingly, recent trends actually bring in the “Zen” orientation from Buddhism into business in the Western
world.49 Now there are some 700 trademarks containing the word Zen in the United States alone, according to the U.S.
Patent and Trademark Office. “In business, ‘Zen’ is often a synonym for ordinary nothingness,” blogged Nancy
Friedman, a corporate copywriter who consults with businesses on naming and branding. She said that “Zen Page 113
can be combined with mail to describe ‘an incoming e-mail message with no message or attachments.’ Zen
spin is a verb meaning ‘to tell a story without saying anything at all.’ And to zen a computing problem means to figure it
out in an intuitive flash—perhaps while you’re plugged into the earphones of your ZEN system available from
Creative.”50
CONFUCIANISM
LO4-2
Identify the forces that lead to differences in social culture.
Confucianism was founded in the fifth century b.c. by K’ung-Fu-tzu, more generally known as Confucius. For more than
2,000 years until the 1949 communist revolution, Confucianism was the official ethical system of China. While
observance of Confucian ethics has been weakened in China since 1949, many people still follow the teachings of
Confucius, principally in China, Korea, and Japan. Confucianism teaches the importance of attaining personal salvation
through right action. Although not a religion, Confucian ideology has become deeply embedded in the culture of these
countries over centuries and has an impact on the lives of many millions more.51 Confucianism is built around a
comprehensive ethical code that sets down guidelines for relationships with others. High moral and ethical conduct and
loyalty to others are central to Confucianism. Unlike religions, Confucianism is not concerned with the supernatural and
has little to say about the concept of a supreme being or an afterlife.
Economic Implications of Confucianism
LO4-3
Identify the business and economic implications of differences in culture.
Some scholars maintain that Confucianism may have economic implications as profound as those Weber argued were
found in Protestantism, although they are of a different nature.52 Their basic thesis is that the influence of Confucian
ethics on the culture of China, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, by lowering the costs of doing business in those
countries, may help explain their economic success. In this regard, three values central to the Confucian system of ethics
are of particular interest: loyalty, reciprocal obligations, and honesty in dealings with others.
In Confucian thought, loyalty to one’s superiors is regarded as a sacred duty—an absolute obligation. In
organizations based in Confucian cultures, the loyalty that binds employees to the heads of their organization can reduce
the conflict between management and labor that we find in more class-conscious societies. Cooperation between
management and labor can be achieved at a lower cost in a culture where the virtue of loyalty is emphasized in the value
systems. However, in a Confucian culture, loyalty to one’s superiors, such as a worker’s loyalty to management, is not
blind loyalty.
The concept of reciprocal obligations is also important. Confucian ethics stresses that superiors are obliged to
reward the loyalty of their subordinates by bestowing blessings on them. If these “blessings” are not forthcoming, then
neither will be the loyalty. This Confucian ethic is central to the Chinese concept of guanxi, which refers to relationship
networks supported by reciprocal obligations.53 Guanxi means relationships, although in business settings it can be
better understood as connections. Today, Chinese will often cultivate a guanxiwang, or “relationship network,” for help.
Reciprocal obligations are the glue that holds such networks together. If those obligations are not met—if favors done
are not paid back or reciprocated—the reputation of the transgressor is tarnished, and the person will be less able to draw
on his or her guanxiwang for help in the future. Thus, the implicit threat of social sanctions is often sufficient to ensure
that favors are repaid, obligations are met, and relationships are honored. In a society that lacks a rule-based legal
tradition, and thus legal ways of redressing wrongs such as violations of business agreements, guanxi is an important
mechanism for building long-term relationships and getting business done in China. For an example of the importance of
guanxi, read the accompanying Management Focus on China.
A third concept found in Confucian ethics is the importance attached to honesty. Confucian thinkers emphasize that
although dishonest behavior may yield short-term benefits for the transgressor, dishonesty does not pay in the Page 114
long run. The importance attached to honesty has major economic implications. When companies can trust
each other not to break contractual obligations, the costs of doing business are lowered. Expensive lawyers are not
needed to resolve contract disputes. In a Confucian society, people may be less hesitant to commit substantial resources
to cooperative ventures than in a society where honesty is less pervasive. When companies adhere to Confucian ethics,
they can trust each other not to violate the terms of cooperative agreements. Thus, the costs of achieving Page 115
cooperation between companies may be lower in societies such as Japan relative to societies where trust is less
pervasive.
MANAGEMENT FOCUS
China and Its Guanxi
A few years ago, DMG emerged as one of China’s fastest-growing advertising agencies with a client list that includes Unilever,
Sony, Nabisco, Audi, Volkswagen, China Mobile, and dozens of other Chinese brands. Dan Mintz, the company’s founder, said
that the success of DMG was connected strongly to what the Chinese call guanxi.
Guanxi means relationships or business connections. The concept has its roots in the Confucian philosophy of valuing social
hierarchy and reciprocal obligations. Confucian ideology has a 2,000-year-old history in China. Confucianism stresses the
importance of relationships, both within the family and between a master and the servant. Confucian ideology also teaches that
people are not created equal. In Confucian thought, loyalty and obligations to one’s superiors (or to family) are regarded as a
sacred duty, but at the same time, this loyalty has its price. Social superiors are obligated to reward the loyalty of their social
inferiors by bestowing “blessings” upon them; thus, the obligations are reciprocal. Chinese will often cultivate a guanxiwang, or
“relationship network,” for help. There is a tacit acknowledgment that if you have the right guanxi, legal rules can be broken, or at
least bent.
Mintz, who is fluent in Mandarin, cultivated his guanxiwang by going into business with two young Chinese who had
connections, Bing Wu and Peter Xiao. Wu, who works on the production side of the business, was a former national gymnastics
champion, which translates into prestige and access to business and government officials. Xiao comes from a military family with
major political connections. Together, these three have been able to open doors that long-established Western advertising agencies
could not. They have done it in large part by leveraging the contacts of Wu and Xiao and by backing up their connections with
what the Chinese call Shi li, the ability to do good work.
A case in point was DMG’s campaign for Volkswagen, which helped the German company become ubiquitous in China. The
ads used traditional Chinese characters, which had been banned by Chairman Mao during the cultural revolution in favor of
simplified versions. To get permission to use the characters in film and print ads—a first in modern China—the trio had to draw on
high-level government contacts in Beijing. They won over officials by arguing that the old characters should be thought of not as
“characters” but as art. Later, they shot TV spots for the ad on Shanghai’s famous Bund, a congested boulevard that runs along the
waterfront of the old city. Drawing again on government contacts, they were able to shut down the Bund to make the shoot. DMG
has also filmed inside Beijing’s Forbidden City, even though it is against the law to do so. Using his contacts, Mintz persuaded the
government to lift the law for 24 hours. As Mintz has noted, “We don’t stop when we come across regulations. There are
restrictions everywhere you go. You have to know how get around them and get things done.”*
Today, DMG Entertainment has expanded into being a Chinese-based production and distribution company. While it began as
an advertising agency, the company started distributing non-Chinese movies in the Chinese market in the late 2000s (e.g., Iron
Man 3, the sixth-highest-grossing film of all time in China) as well as producing Chinese films, the first being Founding of a
Republic, a movie that marked the 60th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China. In these activities, DMG is also enjoying
guanxi in the country. Variety reported that DMG benefited from “strong connections” with Chinese government officials and the
state-run China Film Group Corporation.
*Graser, Marc, “Featured Player,” Variety, October 18, 2004.
Sources: Rob Cain, “Chinese Studio DMG Emerges as Bidder for Major Stake in Paramount Pictures,” Media and Entertainment, March 15, 2016; Ali Jaafar, “China’s DMG
Inks Deal with Hasbro to Launch First ‘Transformers’ Live Action Attraction,” Deadline Hollywood, January 16, 2016; A. Busch, “China’s DMG and Valiant Entertainment
Partner to Expand Superhero Universe,” Deadline Hollywood, March 12, 2015; C. Coonan, “DMG’s Dan Mintz: Hollywood’s Man in China,” Variety, June 5, 2013; and
Simon Montlake, “Hollywood’s Mr China: Dan Mintz, DMG,” Forbes, August 29, 2012.
For example, it has been argued that the close ties between the automobile companies and their component parts
suppliers in Japan are facilitated by a combination of trust and reciprocal obligations. These close ties allow the auto
companies and their suppliers to work together on a range of issues, including inventory reduction, quality control, and
design. The competitive advantage of Japanese auto companies such as Toyota may in part be explained by such
factors.54 Similarly, the combination of trust and reciprocal obligations is central to the workings and persistence of
guanxi networks in China.
TEST PREP
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or go to learnsmartadvantage.com for help.
Language
One obvious way in which many countries differ is the language used by the population. By language, we mean both the
spoken and the unspoken means of communication. Language is also one of the defining characteristics of a culture.
Oftentimes, learning a language entails learning the culture and vice versa. Some would even argue that a person cannot
get entrenched in a culture without knowing its dominant language.
SPOKEN LANGUAGE
Language does far more than just enable people to communicate with each other. The nature of a language also
structures the way we perceive the world. The language of a society can direct the attention of its members to certain
features of the world rather than others. The classic illustration of this phenomenon is that whereas the English language
has but one word for snow, the language of the Inuit (Eskimos) lacks a general term for it. Instead, distinguishing
different forms of snow is so important in the lives of the Inuit that they have 24 words that describe different types of
snow (e.g., powder snow, falling snow, wet snow, drifting snow).55
Because language shapes the way people perceive the world, it also helps define culture. Countries with more than
one language often have more than one culture. Canada has an English-speaking culture and a French-speaking culture.
Tensions between the two can run quite high, with a substantial proportion of the French-speaking minority demanding
independence from a Canada “dominated by English speakers.” The same phenomenon can be observed in many other
countries. Belgium is divided into Flemish and French speakers, and tensions between the two groups exist. In Spain, a
Basque-speaking minority with its own distinctive culture has been agitating for independence from the Spanishspeaking majority for decades. On the Mediterranean island of Cyprus, the culturally diverse Greek- and Turkishspeaking populations of the island continually engage in some level of conflict. The island is now partitioned into two
parts as a consequence. While it does not necessarily follow that language differences create differences in culture and,
therefore, separatist pressures (witness the harmony in Switzerland, where four languages are spoken), there certainly
seems to be a tendency in this direction.56
Mandarin (Chinese) is the mother tongue of the largest number of people, followed by English and Hindi, which is
spoken mainly in India. However, the most widely spoken language in the world is English, followed by French,
Spanish, and Mandarin (many people speak English as a second language). English is increasingly becoming the
language of international business, as it has been in much of the developed world for years. When Japanese and German
businesspeople get together to do business, it is almost certain they will communicate in English. However, though
English is widely used, learning the local language yields considerable advantages. Most people prefer to converse in
their own language, and being able to speak the local language can build rapport and goodwill. International Page 116
businesses that do not understand the local language often make blunders through improper translation, take
longer to negotiate business deals, or may lose a potential deal altogether.
For example, some time ago, the Sunbeam Corporation used the English words for its “Mist-Stick” mist-producing
hair-curling iron when it entered the German market, only to discover after an expensive advertising campaign that mist
means excrement in German. General Motors was troubled by the lack of enthusiasm among Puerto Rican dealers for its
Chevrolet Nova. When literally translated into Spanish, nova means star. However, when spoken it sounds like “no va,”
which in Spanish means “it doesn’t go.” General Motors changed the name of the car to Caribe.57 Ford made a similar
and somewhat embarrassing mistake in Brazil. The Ford Pinto may well have been a good car, but the Brazilians wanted
no part of a car called “pinto,” which is slang for tiny male genitals in Brazil. Even the world’s largest furniture
manufacturer, IKEA from Sweden, ran into branding issues when it named a plant pot “Jättebra” (which means great or
superbly good in Swedish). Unfortunately, Jättebra resembles the Thai slang word for sex. Pepsi’s slogan “come alive
with the Pepsi Generation” did not quite work in China. People in China took it to mean “bring your ancestors back from
the grave.”
UNSPOKEN LANGUAGE
LO4-2
Identify the forces that lead to differences in social culture.
Unspoken language refers to nonverbal communication. We all communicate with each other by a host of nonverbal
cues. The raising of eyebrows, for example, is a sign of recognition in most cultures, while a smile is a sign of joy. Many
nonverbal cues, however, are culturally bound. A failure to understand the nonverbal cues of another culture can lead to
a communication failure. For example, making a circle with the thumb and the forefinger is a friendly gesture in the
United States, but it is a vulgar sexual invitation in Greece and Turkey. Similarly, while most Americans and Europeans
use the thumbs-up gesture to indicate that “it’s all right,” in Greece the gesture is obscene.
Another aspect of nonverbal communication is personal space, which is the comfortable amount of distance
between you and someone you are talking with. In the United States, the customary distance apart in a business
discussion is five to eight feet. In Latin America, it is three to five feet. Consequently, many North Americans
unconsciously feel that Latin Americans are invading their personal space and can be seen backing away from them
during a conversation. Indeed, the American may feel that the Latin is being aggressive and pushy. In turn, the Latin
American may interpret such backing away as aloofness. The result can be a regrettable lack of rapport between two
businesspeople from different cultures.
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Education
LO4-2
Identify the forces that lead to differences in social culture.
Formal education plays a key role in a society, and it is usually the medium through which individuals learn many of the
languages, knowledge, and skills that are indispensable in a modern society. Formal education supplements the family’s
role in socializing the young into the values and norms of a society. Values and norms are taught both directly and
indirectly. Schools generally teach basic facts about the social and political nature of a society. They also focus on the
fundamental obligations of citizenship. In addition, cultural norms are taught indirectly at school. Respect for others,
obedience to authority, honesty, neatness, being on time, and so on are all part of the “hidden curriculum” of schools.
The use of a grading system teaches children the value of personal achievement and competition.58
From an international business perspective, one important aspect of education is its role as a determinant of national
competitive advantage.59 The availability of a pool of skilled and knowledgeable workers is a major determinant of the
likely economic success of a country. In analyzing the competitive success of Japan, for example, Harvard Business
School Professor Michael Porter notes that after the last World War, Japan had almost nothing except for a Page 117
pool of skilled and educated human resources:
With a long tradition of respect for education that borders on reverence, Japan possessed a large pool of literate, educated, and
increasingly skilled human resources. . . . Japan has benefited from a large pool of trained engineers. Japanese universities
graduate many more engineers per capita than in the United States. . . . A first-rate primary and secondary education system in
Japan operates based on high standards and emphasizes math and science. Primary and secondary education is highly
competitive. . . . Japanese education provides most students all over Japan with a sound education for later education and training.
A Japanese high school graduate knows as much about math as most American college graduates.60
Porter’s point is that Japan’s excellent education system is an important factor explaining the country’s postwar
economic success. Not only is a good education system a determinant of national competitive advantage, but it is also an
important factor guiding the location choices of international businesses. The trend to outsource information technology
jobs to India, for example, is partly due to the presence of significant numbers of trained engineers in India, which in turn
is a result of the Indian education system. By the same token, it would make little sense to base production facilities that
require highly skilled labor in a country where the education system was so poor that a skilled labor pool was not
available, no matter how attractive the country might seem regarding other dimensions, such as cost.
The general education level of a country is also a good index of the kind of products that might sell in a country,
and of the type of promotional materials that should be used. As an example, a country where more than 50 percent of
the population is illiterate is unlikely to be a good market for popular books. But perhaps more importantly, promotional
materials containing written descriptions of mass-marketed products are unlikely to have an effect in a country where
half of the population cannot read. It is far better to use pictorial promotions in such circumstances.
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Culture and Business
LO4-4
Recognize how differences in social culture influence values in business.
Of considerable importance for a multinational corporation, or any company—small, medium, or large—with operations
in different countries, is how a society’s culture affects the values found in the workplace. Management processes and
practices may need to vary according to culturally determined work-related values. For example, if the cultures of Brazil
and the United Kingdom or the United States and Sweden result in different work-related values, a company with
operations in the different countries should vary its management processes and practices to account for these differences.
The most famous study of how culture relates to values in the workplace was undertaken by Geert Hofstede.61 As
part of his job as a psychologist working for IBM, Hofstede collected data on employee attitudes and values for more
than 116,000 individuals. Respondents were matched on occupation, age, and gender. The data enabled him to compare
dimensions of culture across 50 countries. Hofstede initially isolated four dimensions that he claimed summarized the
different cultures62—power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism versus collectivism, and masculinity versus
femininity—and then, later on, he added a fifth dimension inspired by Confucianism that he called long-term versus
short-term orientation.63
The fifth dimension was added as a function of the data obtained via the Chinese Value Survey (CVS), an
instrument developed by Michael Harris Bond based on discussions with Hofstede.64 Bond used input from “Eastern
minds,” as Hofstede called it, to develop the Chinese Value Survey. Bond also references Chinese scholars as helping
him create the values that exemplify this new long-term versus short-term orientation. In his original research, Bond
called the fifth dimension “Confucian work dynamism,” but Hofstede said that in practical terms, the dimension refers to
a long-term versus short-term orientation.
Page 118
Hofstede’s power distance dimension focused on how a society deals with the fact that people are
unequal in physical and intellectual capabilities. According to Hofstede, high power distance cultures were found in
countries that let inequalities grow over time into inequalities of power and wealth. Low power distance cultures were
found in societies that tried to play down such inequalities as much as possible.
The individualism versus collectivism dimension focused on the relationship between the individual and his or her
fellows. In individualistic societies, the ties between individuals were loose, and individual achievement and freedom
were highly valued. In societies where collectivism was emphasized, the ties between individuals were tight. In such
societies, people were born into collectives, such as extended families, and everyone was supposed to look after the
interest of his or her collective.
Hofstede’s uncertainty avoidance dimension measured the extent to which different cultures socialized their
members into accepting ambiguous situations and tolerating uncertainty. Members of high uncertainty avoidance
cultures placed a premium on job security, career patterns, retirement benefits, and so on. They also had a strong need for
rules and regulations; the manager was expected to issue clear instructions, and subordinates’ initiatives were tightly
controlled. Lower uncertainty cultures are characterized by both a readiness to take risks and less emotional resistance to
change.
Hofstede’s masculinity versus femininity dimension looked at the relationship between gender and work roles. In
masculine cultures, gender roles were differentiated, and traditional “masculine values,” such as achievement and
effective exercise of power, determined cultural ideals. In feminine cultures, gender roles were less distinguished, and
little differentiation was made between men and women in the same job.
The long-term versus short-term orientation dimension refers to the extent to which a culture programs its
citizens to accept delayed gratification of their material, social, and emotional needs. It captures attitudes toward time,
persistence, ordering by status, protection of face, respect for tradition, and reciprocation of gifts and favors. The label
refers to these “values” being derived from Confucian teachings.
Hofstede created an index score for each of these five dimensions that ranged from 0 to 100 (with 100 being a high
score).65 By using IBM, Hofstede was able to hold company influences as a constant across cultures. Thus, any
differences across the country cultures would by design be due to differences in the countries’ cultures and not the
company’s culture. He averaged the scores for all employees from a given country to create the index score for each
dimension.
A strong movement is under way to add a sixth dimension to Hofstede’s work. Geert Hofstede, working with
Michael Minkov’s analysis of the World Values Survey, added a promising new dimension called indulgence versus
restraint (IND) in 2010.66 On January 17, 2011, Hofstede delivered a webinar for SIETAR Europe called “New Software
of the Mind” to introduce the third edition of Cultures and Organizations, in which the results of Minkov’s analysis were
included to support this sixth dimension. In addition, in a keynote delivered at the annual meeting of the Academy of
International Business (http://aib.msu.edu) in Istanbul, Turkey, on July 6, 2013, Hofstede again presented results and
theoretical rationale to support the indulgence versus restraint dimension. Indulgence refers to a society that allows
relatively free gratification of basic and natural human drives related to enjoying life and having fun. Restraint refers to a
society that suppresses gratification of needs and regulates it by means of strict social norms. Despite years in the
making, strong support exists for the original four dimensions of Hofstede’s work, and many agree on the fifth
dimension as well, but a number of scholars remain skeptical about the latest sixth addition.
Table 4.1 summarizes data for 15 selected countries for the five established dimensions of individualism versus
collectivism, power distance, uncertainty avoidance, masculinity versus femininity, and long-term versus short-term
orientation (the Hofstede data were collected for 50 countries and the Bond data were collected for 23 countries;
numerous other researchers have also added to the country samples). Western nations such as the United States, Canada,
and United Kingdom score high on the individualism scale and low on the power distance scale. Latin American and
Asian countries emphasize collectivism over individualism and score high on the power distance scale. Table 4.1 also
reveals that Japan’s culture has strong uncertainty avoidance and high masculinity. This characterization fits Page 119
the standard stereotype of Japan as a country that is male dominant and where uncertainty avoidance exhibits
itself in the institution of lifetime employment. Sweden and Denmark stand out as countries that have both low
uncertainty avoidance and low masculinity (high emphasis on “feminine” values).
Hofstede’s results are interesting for what they tell us in a very general way about differences among cultures.
Many of Hofstede’s findings are consistent with standard stereotypes about cultural differences. For example, many
people believe Americans are more individualistic and egalitarian than the Japanese (they have a lower power distance),
who in turn are more individualistic and egalitarian than Mexicans. Similarly, many might agree that Latin countries
place a higher emphasis on masculine value—they are machismo cultures—than the Scandinavian countries of Denmark
and Sweden. As might be expected, East Asian countries such as Japan and Thailand scored high on long-term
orientation, while nations such as the United States and Canada scored low.
However, we should be careful about reading too much into Hofstede’s research. It has been criticized on a number
of points.67 First, Hofstede assumes there is a one-to-one correspondence between culture and the nation-state, but as we
discussed earlier, many countries have more than one culture. Second, Hofstede’s research may have been culturally
bound. The research team was composed of Europeans and Americans. The questions they asked of IBM employees—
and their analysis of the answers—may have been shaped by their own cultural biases and concerns. The later addition of
the long-term versus short-term dimension illustrates this point. Third, Hofstede’s informants worked not only within a
single industry, the computer industry, but also within one company, IBM. At the time, IBM was renowned for its own
strong corporate culture and employee selection procedures, making it possible that the employees’ values were different
in important respects from the values of the cultures from which those employees came, as we also pointed out earlier.
Still, Hofstede’s work is the leading research the world has seen on culture. It represents a great starting Page 120
point for managers trying to figure out how cultures differ and what that might mean for management
practices. Also, several other scholars have found strong evidence that differences in culture affect values and practices
in the workplace, and Hofstede’s basic results have been replicated using more diverse samples of individuals in
different settings.68 Nevertheless, managers should use the results with caution. One reason for caution is the plethora of
new cultural values surveys and data points that are starting to become important additions to Hofstede’s work. Two
additional cultural values frameworks that have been examined and have been related to work and business issues are the
Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness instrument and the World Values Survey.
The Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness (GLOBE) instrument is designed to address the
notion that a leader’s effectiveness is contextual.69 It is embedded in the societal and organizational values and norms of
the people being led. The initial GLOBE findings from 62 societies involving 17,300 middle managers from 951
organizations build on findings by Hofstede and other culture researchers. The GLOBE research established nine cultural
dimensions: power distance, uncertainty avoidance, humane orientation, institutional collectivism, in-group collectivism,
assertiveness, gender egalitarianism, future orientation, and performance orientation.
The World Values Survey (WVS) is a research project spanning more than 100 countries that explores people’s
values and norms, how they change over time, and what impact they have in society and on business.70 The WVS
includes dimensions for support for democracy; tolerance of foreigners and ethnic minorities; support for gender
equality; the role of religion and changing levels of religiosity; the impact of globalization; attitudes toward the
environment, work, family, politics, national identity, culture, diversity, and insecurity; and subjective well-being.
As a reminder, culture is just one of many factors that might influence the economic success of a nation. While
culture’s importance should not be ignored, neither should it be overstated. The Hofstede framework is the most
significant and studied framework of culture as it relates to work values and business that we have ever seen. But some
of the newer culture frameworks (e.g., GLOBE, WVS) are also becoming popular in the literature, and they have
potential to complement and perhaps even supplant Hofstede’s work with additional validation and connection to workrelated values, business, and marketplace issues. At the same time, the factors discussed in Chapters 2 and 3—economic,
political, and legal systems—are probably more important than culture in explaining differential economic growth rates
over time.
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Cultural Change
LO4-5
Demonstrate an appreciation for the economic and business implications of cultural change.
Page 121
An important point we want to make in this chapter on culture is that culture is not a constant; it evolves over
time.71 Changes in value systems can be slow and painful for a society. Change, however, does occur and can often be
quite profound. At the beginning of the 1960s, the idea that women might hold senior management positions in major
corporations was not widely accepted. Today, of course, it is a natural and welcomed reality, and most people in the
United States could not fathom it any other way. For example, in 2012 Virginia Rometty became the CEO of IBM; Mary
Barra became the CEO of General Motors in 2014; and Corie Barry became the CEO of Best Buy in 2019—all
companies with more than $40 billion in annual sales (GM $147B, IBM $80B, and Best Buy $40B). GM’s Mary Barra
has been named to the Time 100, and Forbes named her one of the World’s 100 Most Powerful Women. As another
example, 24 of the CEO positions at S&P 500 companies were held by women in 2019; obviously still a large
discrepancy compared with the opportunities for men, but an improvement from decades earlier, and one that is likely to
continue to improve. In mainstream American society, no one any longer questions the development or capability of
women in the business world, and it is amazing to think the country once did.
For another illustration of cultural change, consider Japan. Some business professionals argue that a cultural shift
has been occurring in Japan, with a move toward greater individualism.72 The Japanese office worker, or “salary
person,” is characterized as being loyal to his or her boss and the organization to the point of giving up evenings,
weekends, and vacations to serve the organization. However, a new generation of office workers may not fit this model.
An individual from the new generation is likely to be more direct than the traditional Japanese. This new-generation
person acts more like a Westerner, a gaijin. He or she does not live for the company and will move on if he or she gets an
offer of a better job or has to work too much overtime.73
Leila Navidi/Minneapolis Star Tribune/ZUMA Wire/Alamy Stock Photo
Several studies have suggested that economic advancement and globalization may be important factors in societal
change.74 There is evidence that economic progress is accompanied by a shift in values away from collectivism and
toward individualism.75 As Japan has become richer, the cultural emphasis on collectivism has declined and greater
individualism is being witnessed. One reason for this shift may be that richer societies exhibit less need for social and
material support built on collectives, whether the collective is the extended family or the company. People are better able
to take care of their own needs. As a result, the importance attached to collectivism declines, while greater economic
freedoms lead to an increase in opportunities for expressing individualism.
The culture of societies may also change as they become richer because economic progress affects a number of
other factors, which in turn influence culture. For example, increased urbanization and improvements in the quality and
availability of education are both a function of economic progress, and both can lead to declining emphasis on the
traditional values associated with poor rural societies. The World Values Survey, which we mentioned earlier, has
documented how values change. The study linked these changes in values to changes in a country’s level of economic
development.76 As countries get richer, a shift occurs away from “traditional values” linked to religion, family, and
country, and toward “secular-rational” values. Traditionalists say religion is important in their lives. They have a strong
sense of national pride; they also think that children should be taught to obey and that the first duty of a child is to make
his or her parents proud.
The merging or convergence of cultures can also be traced to the world today being more globalized than ever.
Advances in transportation and communication, technology, and international trade have set the tone for global
corporations (e.g., Disney, Microsoft, Google) to be part of bringing diverse cultures together into a form of
homogeneity we have not seen before.77 There are endless examples of global companies helping to foster a ubiquitous,
social-media-driven youth culture. Plus, with countries around the world climbing the ladder of economic progress, some
argue that the conditions for less cultural variation have been created. There may be a slow but steady convergence
occurring across different cultures toward some universally accepted values and norms. This is known as the
convergence hypothesis, and such convergence at least is happening at younger ages of the population. Older people still
appear culturally different, however—their world remains spiky and is not yet flat!78
At the same time, we should not ignore important countertrends, such as the shift toward Islamic fundamentalism in
several countries; the continual separatist movement in Quebec, Canada; ethnic strains and separatist movements in
Russia; nationalist movements in the United Kingdom (Brexit); and the election of a populist, nationally oriented Donald
Trump as the 45th president of the United States. Such countertrends are a reaction to the pressures for cultural
convergence. In an increasingly modern and materialistic world, some societies are trying to reemphasize their cultural
roots and uniqueness. It is also important to note that while some elements of culture change quite rapidly—particularly
the use of material symbols—
other elements change slowly. Thus, just because people the world over wear jeans, eat at McDonald’s, use smartphones,
watch their national version of American Idol, and drive Ford cars to work, we should not assume they have also adopted
American (or Western) values. Often they have not.79 Thus, a distinction must be made between the visible material
aspects of culture and its deep structure, particularly its core social values and norms. The deep structure changes only
slowly, and differences are often far more persistent.
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Page 122
FOCUS ON MANAGERIAL IMPLICATIONS
CULTURAL LITERACY AND COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE
International business is different from national business because countries and societies are different. Societies differ
because their cultures vary. Their cultures vary because of differences in social structure, religion, language, education,
economic philosophy, and political philosophy. Three important implications for international business flow from these
differences. The first is the need to develop cross-cultural literacy. There is a need not only to appreciate that cultural
differences exist but also to appreciate what such differences mean for international business. A second implication
centers on the connection between culture and national competitive advantage. A third implication looks at the
connection between culture and ethics in decision making. In this section, we explore the first two of these issues in
depth. The connection between culture and ethics is explored in Chapter 5.
Cross-Cultural Literacy
One of the biggest dangers confronting a company that goes abroad for the first time is the danger of being ill-informed.
International businesses that are ill-informed about another culture are likely to fail. Doing business in different cultures
requires adaptation to conform to the value systems and norms of that culture. Adaptation can embrace all aspects of an
international firm’s operations in a foreign country. The way in which deals are negotiated, appropriate incentive pay
systems for salespeople, the structure of the organization, name of a product, tenor of relations between management and
labor, the manner in which the product is promoted, and so on, are all sensitive to cultural differences. What works in
one culture might not work in another.
To combat the danger of being ill-informed, international businesses should consider employing local citizens to
help them do business in a particular culture. They must also ensure that home-country executives are well-versed
enough to understand how differences in culture affect the practice of business. Transferring executives globally at
regular intervals to expose them to different cultures will help build a cadre of knowledgeable executives. An
international business must also be constantly on guard against the dangers of ethnocentric behavior. Ethnocentrism is a
belief in the superiority of one’s own ethnic group or culture. Hand in hand with ethnocentrism goes a disregard or
contempt for the culture of other countries. Unfortunately, ethnocentrism is all too prevalent; many Americans are guilty
of it, as are many French people, Japanese people, British people, and so on.
Anthropologist Edward T. Hall has described how Americans, who tend to be informal in nature, react strongly to
being corrected or reprimanded in public.80 This can cause problems in Germany, where a cultural tendency toward
correcting strangers can shock and offend most Americans. For their part, Germans can be a bit taken aback by the
tendency of Americans to call people by their first name. This is uncomfortable enough among executives of the same
rank, but it can be seen as insulting when a junior American executive addresses a more senior German manager by his
or her first name without having been invited to do so. Hall concludes it can take a long time to get on a first-name basis
with a German; if you rush the process, you will be perceived as over friendly and rude—and that may not be good for
business.
Hall also notes that cultural differences in attitude to time can cause myriad problems. He notes that in the United
States, giving a person a deadline is a way of increasing the urgency or relative importance of a task. However, in the
Middle East, giving a deadline can have exactly the opposite effect. The American who insists an Arab business
associate make his mind up in a hurry is likely to be perceived as overly demanding and exerting undue pressure. The
result may be exactly the opposite, with the Arab going slow as a reaction to the American’s rudeness. The American
may believe that an Arab associate is being rude if he shows up late to a meeting because he met a friend in the street and
stopped to talk. The American, of course, is very concerned about time and scheduling. But for the Arab, Page 123
finishing the discussion with a friend is more important than adhering to a strict schedule. Indeed, the Arab
may be puzzled as to why the American attaches so much importance to time and schedule.
Culture and Competitive Advantage
One theme that surfaces in this chapter is the relationship between culture and national competitive advantage.81 Put
simply, the value systems and norms of a country influence the costs of doing business in that country. The costs of
doing business in a country influence the ability of firms to establish a competitive advantage. We have seen how
attitudes toward cooperation between management and labor, toward work, and toward the payment of interest are
influenced by social structure and religion. It can be argued that the class-based conflict between workers and
management in class-conscious societies raises the costs of doing business. Similarly, some sociologists have argued that
the ascetic “other-worldly” ethics of Hinduism may not be as supportive of capitalism as the ethics embedded in
Protestantism and Confucianism. Islamic laws banning interest payments may raise the costs of doing business by
constraining a country’s banking system.
Some scholars have argued that the culture of modern Japan lowers the costs of doing business relative to the costs
in most Western nations. Japan’s emphasis on group affiliation, loyalty, reciprocal obligations, honesty, and education all
boost the competitiveness of Japanese companies—at least that is the argument. The emphasis on group affiliation and
loyalty encourages individuals to identify strongly with the companies in which they work. This tends to foster an ethic
of hard work and cooperation between management and labor “for the good of the company.” In addition, the availability
of a pool of highly skilled labor, particularly engineers, has helped Japanese enterprises develop cost-reducing process
innovations that have boosted their productivity.82 Thus, cultural factors may help explain the success enjoyed by many
Japanese businesses. Most notably, it has been argued that the rise of Japan as an economic power during the second half
of the twentieth century may be in part attributed to the economic consequences of its culture.83
It also has been argued that the Japanese culture is less supportive of entrepreneurial activity than, say, American
society. In many ways, entrepreneurial activity is a product of an individualistic mindset, not a classic characteristic of
the Japanese. This may explain why American enterprises, rather than Japanese corporations, dominate industries where
entrepreneurship and innovation are highly valued, such as computer software and biotechnology. Of course, exceptions
to this generalization exist. Masayoshi Son recognized the potential of software far faster than any of Japan’s corporate
giants. He set up his company, Softbank, in 1981, and over the past 40 years has built it into Japan’s top software
distributor. Similarly, entrepreneurial individuals established major Japanese companies such as Sony and Matsushita.
For international business, the connection between culture and competitive advantage is important for two reasons.
First, the connection suggests which countries are likely to produce the most viable competitors. For example, we might
argue that U.S. enterprises are likely to see continued growth in aggressive, cost-efficient competitors from those Pacific
Rim nations where a combination of free-market economics, Confucian ideology, group-oriented social structures, and
advanced education systems can all be found (e.g., South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, and, increasingly, China). Second, the
connection between culture and competitive advantage has important implications for the choice of countries in which to
locate production facilities and do business.
Consider a hypothetical case where a company has to choose between two countries, A and B, for locating a
production facility. Both countries are characterized by low labor costs and good access to world markets. Both countries
are of roughly the same size (in terms of population), and both are at a similar stage of economic development. In
country A, the education system is underdeveloped, the society is characterized by a marked stratification Page 124
between the upper and lower classes, and there are six major linguistic groups. In country B, the education
system is well developed, social stratification is lacking, group identification is valued by the culture, and there is only
one linguistic group. Which country makes the best investment site?
Country B probably does. In country A, the conflict between management and labor, and between different
language groups, can be expected to lead to social and industrial disruption, thereby raising the costs of doing business.84
The lack of a good education system also can be expected to work against the attainment of business goals. The same
kind of comparison could be made for an international business trying to decide where to push its products, country A or
B. Again, country B would be the logical choice because cultural factors suggest that in the long run, country B is the
nation most likely to achieve the greatest level of economic growth.
But as important as culture is to people, companies, and society, it is probably less important than economic,
political, and legal systems in explaining differential economic growth between nations. Cultural differences are
significant, but we should not overemphasize their importance in the economic sphere. For example, earlier we noted
that Max Weber argued that the ascetic principles embedded in Hinduism do not encourage entrepreneurial activity.
While this is an interesting thesis, recent years have seen an increase in entrepreneurial activity in India, particularly in
the information technology sector, where India is an important global player. The ascetic principles of Hinduism and
caste-based social stratification have apparently not held back entrepreneurial activity in this sector.
Key Terms
cross-cultural literacy, p. 94
culture, p. 96
values, p. 96
norms, p. 96
society, p. 96
folkways, p. 97
mores, p. 98
social structure, p. 99
group, p. 100
social strata, p. 102
social mobility, p. 102
caste system, p. 102
class system, p. 102
class consciousness, p. 105
religion, p. 105
ethical system, p. 105
power distance, p. 118
individualism versus collectivism, p. 118
uncertainty avoidance, p. 118
masculinity versus femininity, p. 118
long-term versus short-term orientation, p. 118
ethnocentrism, p. 122
SUMMARY
This chapter has looked at the nature of culture and discussed a number of implications for business practice. The
chapter made the following points:
1. Culture is a complex phenomenon that includes knowledge, beliefs, art, morals, law, customs, and other
capabilities acquired by people as members of society.
2. Values and norms are the central components of a culture. Values are abstract ideals about what a society
believes to be good, right, and desirable. Norms are social rules and guidelines that prescribe appropriate
behavior in particular situations.
3. Values and norms are influenced by political forces, economic philosophy, social structure, religion, language,
and education. And, the value systems and norms of a country can affect the costs of doing business in that
country.
4. The social structure of society refers to its basic social organization. Two main dimensions along Page 125
which social structures differ are the individual–group dimension and the stratification dimension.
5. In some societies, the individual is the basic building block of a social organization. These societies emphasize
individual achievements above all else. In other societies, the group is the basic building block of the social
organization. These societies emphasize group membership and group achievements above all else.
6. Virtually all societies are stratified into different classes. Class-conscious societies are characterized by low
social mobility and a high degree of stratification. Less class-conscious societies are characterized by high
social mobility and a low degree of stratification.
7. Religion may be defined as a system of shared beliefs and rituals that is concerned with the realm of the
sacred. Ethical systems refer to a set of moral principles, or values, that are used to guide and shape behavior.
The world’s major religions are Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism. The value systems of different
religious and ethical systems have different implications for business practice.
8. Language is one defining characteristic of a culture. It has both spoken and unspoken dimensions. In countries
with more than one spoken language, we tend to find more than one culture.
9. Formal education is the medium through which individuals learn knowledge and skills as well as become
socialized into the values and norms of a society. Education plays a role in the determination of national
competitive advantage.
10. Geert Hofstede studied how culture relates to values in the workplace. He isolated five dimensions that
summarized different cultures: power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism versus collectivism,
masculinity versus femininity, and long-term versus short-term orientation.
11. Culture is not a constant; it evolves, albeit often slowly. Economic progress and globalization are two
important engines of cultural change.
12. One danger confronting a company that goes abroad is being ill-informed. To develop cross-cultural literacy,
companies operating globally should consider employing host-country nationals, build a cadre of
cosmopolitan executives, and guard against the dangers of ethnocentric behavior.
Critical Thinking and Discussion Questions
1. Discuss why the culture of a country might influence the costs of doing business in that country. Illustrate
your answer with country and company examples.
2. Do you think that business practices in an Islamic country are likely to differ from business practices in a
Christian country? If so, how? If not, why?
3. Choose two countries that appear to be culturally diverse (e.g., Sweden and Colombia). Compare the cultures
of those countries, and then indicate how cultural differences influence (a) the costs of doing business in each
country, (b) the likely future economic development of each country, and (c) differences in business practices.
4. Reread the Country Focus “Turkey, Its Religion, and Politics.” Then answer the following questions:
a. Can you see anything in the values and norms of Islam that is hostile to business? Explain.
b. What does the experience of the region around Kayseri teach about the relationship between Islam and
business?
c. What are the implications of Islamic values toward business for the participation of a country such as
Turkey in the global economy or becoming a member of the European Union?
5. Reread the Management Focus “China and Its Guanxi” and answer the following questions:
a. Why do you think it is so important to cultivate guanxi and guanxiwang in China?
b. What does the experience of DMG tell us about the way things work in China? What would likely happen
to a business that obeyed all the rules and regulations, rather than trying to find a way around them like
Dan Mintz?
c. What ethical issues might arise when drawing on guanxiwang to get things done in China? What does this
suggest about the limits of using guanxiwang for a Western business committed to high ethical standards?
global EDGE research
task globaledge.msu.edu
Page 126
Use the globalEDGE™ website (globaledge.msu.edu) to complete the following exercises:
1. You are preparing for a business trip to Brazil, where you will need to interact extensively with local
professionals. As a result, you want to collect information about the local culture and business practices prior
to your departure. A colleague from Latin America recommends that you visit the Brazil page on globalEDGE
and read through the country insights and data available. Prepare a short description of the most striking
cultural characteristics that may affect business interactions in this country.
2. Typically, cultural factors drive the differences in business etiquette encountered during international business
travel. In fact, Middle Eastern cultures exhibit significant differences in business etiquette when compared to
Western cultures. Prior to leaving for your first business trip to the region, a colleague informed you that
globalEDGE can help you (as can a globalEDGE-promoted guide titled Business Etiquette around the World).
Identify five tips regarding business etiquette in the Middle Eastern country of your choice (e.g., Turkey).
CLOSING CASE
China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan
Today, a lot of discussion centers on how much economic power, political influence, and international competitiveness
the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has achieved in the international marketplace in just a few decades. Culturally,
such power in the international marketplace also begs the questions of how much influence China is likely to have
moving forward, and what this means for China’s influence culturally around the world. So far, other powerful countries
in the world have focused on China’s economic influence, but what about the country’s influence on culture?
China, along with India, Brazil, and Russia, form the so-called BRIC countries (an acronym formulated using their
initial letters), which have been viewed as the business engines of tomorrow (especially China and India), based on their
immense economic potential. The BRICs, which cover a quarter of the world’s landmass and contain 40 percent of its
population, had a combined GDP of $20 trillion in 2001. Today, these increasingly market-oriented economies boast a
GDP of $37 trillion (or 22 percent of global GDP), a figure forecast to reach $120 trillion by 2050. Together, they
control more than 43 percent of the world’s currency reserves ($4 trillion) and 20 percent of its trade. Is it too simplistic
and naïve to think that the BRIC countries–especially China and Russia–only have a focus on economic power? Clearly,
Russia has engaged in at least some political activities that have had tremendous global effects (e.g., election meddling).
And what about China? Many reports and investigations suggest the country is likewise engaged in political meddling.
Does that affect culture around the world also?
The BRIC countries’ economic size and population were the simplistic starting point to group them as powerful
marketplaces—to export products to, and to buy products from. These datapoints led former Goldman Sachs chief
economist Jim O’Neill to first coin the acronym BRIC to highlight the immense collective economic potential of these
four emerging markets. However, despite many countries’ and companies’ enthusiasm for increased global interaction
and economic exchange with the BRIC economies, especially China and India, many have found that cultural differences
hinder their ability to conduct business in these countries. Not only is the culture different between each BRIC country
and most of the globe’s remaining 191 countries, but the business and societal cultures within the BRIC countries are
also vastly different from each other.
Plus, the outlook for the BRICs may not be as positive as we have been led to believe anyway. For example, the
structural transformation of China (the main driver of the BRICs) from an export-driven economy to one relying more on
domestic consumption, has added some woes. The likelihood is that the trend of annual increases of exports to China
from much of the developed world will also slow down. We will see trade increases, nevertheless, just not as Page 127
significantly as in the past decade. China is a gigantic market that we must pay attention to, of course. China is
beginning to also influence the world’s culture outwardly. Economics still drive China’s global operations, albeit with an
eye toward also influencing the international marketplace in such a way that it favors China—both in its home market
and abroad.
For example, China is still trying to implement the “one country, two systems” approach—a constitutional principle
formulated by Deng Xiaoping—which involves how to merge mainland China with Hong Kong and Macau. With Xi
Jinping president of China for the foreseeable future as a function of his de facto lifetime appointment when term limits
were removed in 2018, China’s political infrastructure is unlikely to change much. Consequently, China’s culture at
home and how it handles business issues abroad is unlikely to change much as well. Beyond Hong Kong and Macau,
Taiwan presents an even bigger ongoing structural, legal, and cultural challenge for China. While Hong Kong and Macau
mostly fall in line within China’s basic parameters, Taiwan does not.
Hong Kong, a business port located off the southeast coast of China in eastern Asia, traces its history to the Old
Stone Age, and really became entrenched in today’s infrastructure with its inclusion into the Chinese empire during the
Qin dynasty (221–206 b.c.). However, Hong Kong was a self-governing British colony from 1841 to 1997, at which time
it became a Special Administrative Region (SAR) of the People’s Republic of China (on July 1, 1997), pursuant to the
1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration. Throughout this colonial era, Hong Kong’s citizens developed a distinctive “Hong
Kong identity.” To this day, the cultural differences between mainland China and Hong Kong are often pronounced, and
whenever mainland China tries to assert its influence, their relationship becomes more contentious. The sentiment in
Hong Kong is that it needs to be recognized as having a unique culture and a “national identity.” Hong Kong is often, in
many ways, at odds with mainland China in this way, and periodic clashes flare.
Prior to 1999, Macau was a Portuguese colony, that became an overseas province under Portuguese administration
from 1887 to 1999. Macau was both the first and last European colony in China. Just before its return to China in 1999,
Macau experienced a number of economic difficulties. Its biggest revenue items—gaming and tourism—decreased
drastically in 1993, followed by the collapse of the property market in 1994, and then the economic crisis in 1997 that
affected much of Asia. By the time 1999 came around for a handover from Portugal to China, most locals welcomed the
change because of deteriorating public order, rising crime rates, and widespread corruption that had infiltrated the culture
during the last years of the Portuguese-Macau government. Today, Macau is being positioned as a key diplomatic player
in China’s relations with Portuguese-speaking countries.
Taiwan, officially named the Republic of China (ROC), is an island nation (Island of Taiwan, formerly Formosa). It
is the most populous country, with the largest economy, that is not a member of the United Nations. Taiwan was ceded
by the Qing dynasty to Japan in 1895 after the Sino-Japanese War. The Republic of China was established in 1912 after
the fall of the Qing dynasty, while Taiwan was under Japanese rule. However, China has consistently claimed
sovereignty over Taiwan and asserted that the Republic of China (ROC) is no longer in legitimate existence. Under its
One-China Policy, China even refuses to engage in diplomatic relations with any country that recognizes Taiwan. In this
semi-independent state, Taiwan has experienced solid economic growth and industrialization, creating a stable industrial
economy. The culture blends Confucianist Han Chinese and Taiwanese aboriginal influences.
When mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan are combined, we often talk about the larger entity
“Greater China” or the “Greater China Region.” Obviously, there is no legal entity or sovereignty associated with this
“greater region,” except in business/economic development terms. Some argue that the “region” can be seen as being
culturally homogeneous, but such arguments do not hold up well given the clashes between mainland China on one hand
and Hong Kong and Taiwan on the other. Interestingly, Macau has been more positive about its relationship with China,
perhaps due to experiencing serious financial difficulties immediately prior to the 1999 handover from Portugal (these
financial difficulties were essentially solved by China).
Overall, given the strained relationships between China and its close cultural neighbors, the phrase “sinophone
world” (“Chinese-speaking world”) is often used instead of Greater China to incorporate mainland China, Hong Kong,
Macau, and Taiwan. The “sinophone world” may look like a culturally homogenous region, but is far from it.
Sources: Tomas Hult, “The U.S. Shouldn’t Fret over Cheaper Yuan,” Time, August 14, 2015; Tomas Hult, “Why the Fed Is No Longer the Center of the Financial Universe,” Fortune,
September 17, 2015; Tomas Hult, “Does the Global Stock Market Sell-Off Signal the BRIC Age Is Already Over?” The Conversation, August 28, 2015; Tomas Hult, “U.S. Shouldn’t Fret
over Cheaper Yuan: China’s Growing Middle Class Will Keep Buying ‘Made In America,’” The Conversation, August 13, 2015; Tomas Hult, “The BRIC Countries,” globalEDGE
Business Review, 3 (4), 2009; Mark Esposito, Amit Kapoor, and Deepti Mathur, “What Is the State of the BRICS Economies?” World Economic Forum, April 19, 2016.
Page 128
Case Discussion Questions
1. When Goldman Sachs chief economist Jim O’Neill coined the acronym BRIC in 2001 to refer to Brazil, Russia,
India, and China, the focus was to highlight the immense collective economic potential of these countries. Since
that time, China and Russia have influenced the international marketplace in political ways as well. How do you
think these four countries—or a subset of them—will likely influence the world’s cultures in the next 10 years?
2. Anyone who has been to Hong Kong typically says it is different from mainland China, more like Singapore,
albeit with a strong connection to China. Do you think Hong Kong will become more like China in the next few
years, or will China leverage Hong Kong as an asset to engage more capitalistically in the international
marketplace instead?
3. Macau was under Portuguese influence until 1999, which is not that long ago. Many in Macau welcomed the
Chinese takeover so that the area could be better taken care of (e.g., infrastructure, economy). But being part of
the Portuguese administration from 1887 to 1999 clearly has imbued their cultural values and beliefs in the
mindset of Macau’s citizens. How are these values and beliefs likely to influence the Macau–China relationship in
the years to come?
4. Taiwan maintains diplomatic relations with some 76 member states of the United Nations (19 in an official
capacity and 57 in an unofficial capacity). The nation’s culture is a blend of Confucianist Han Chinese and
Taiwanese aboriginal influences. How would you handle the link between China and Taiwan—culturally,
economically, and politically?
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Endnotes
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2. This is a point made effectively by K. Leung, R. S. Bhagat, N. R. Buchan, M. Erez, and C. B. Gibson, “Culture
and International Business: Recent Advances and Their Implications for Future Research,” Journal of
International Business Studies, 2005, pp. 357–78. Several research articles and books also support the notion that
significant cultural differences still exist in the world; for example, T. Hult, D. Closs, and D. Frayer, Global
Supply Chain Management: Leveraging Processes, Measurements, and Tools for Strategic Corporate Advantage
(New York: McGraw-Hill, 2014).
3. Falk, Armin, Anke Becker, Thomas Dohmen, and Benjamin Enke, “Global Evidence on Economic Preferences,”
Quarterly Journal of Economics 133, no. 4 (November 2018): 1645–692.
4. See R. Dore, Taking Japan Seriously (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1987).
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9. G. Hofstede, Culture’s Consequences: International Differences in Work-Related Values (Thousand Oaks, CA:
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10. J. Z. Namenwirth and R. B. Weber, Dynamics of Culture (Boston: Allen & Unwin, 1987), p. 8.
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18. M. Douglas, In the Active Voice (London: Routledge, 1982), pp. 183–254.
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22. For details, see M. Aoki, Information, Incentives, and Bargaining in the Japanese Economy (Cambridge, UK:
Cambridge University Press, 1988); M. L. Dertouzos, R. K. Lester, and R. M. Solow, Made in America
(Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1989).
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Global Innovation Barometer explores how business leaders around the world view innovation and how those
perceptions are influencing business strategies in an increasingly complex and globalized environment. It is the
largest global survey of business executives dedicated to innovation. GE is now surveying more than 3,000
executives in 25 countries, www.ge.com/reports/innovation-barometer-2018.
24. P. Skarynski and R. Gibson, Innovation to the Core: A Blueprint for Transforming the Way Your Company
Innovates (Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 2008); L. Edvinsson and M. Malone, Intellectual
Capital: Realizing Your Company’s True Value by Finding Its Hidden Brainpower (New York: Harper Collins,
1997); T. Davenport and L. Prusak, Working Knowledge: How Organizations Manage What They Know (Boston,
MA: Harvard Business School Press, 1998).
25. G. Macionis and L. John, Sociology (Toronto, Ontario: Pearson Canada, Inc., 2010), pp. 224–25.
26. E. Luce, The Strange Rise of Modern India (Boston: Little, Brown, 2006); D. Pick and K. Dayaram, “Modernity
and Tradition in the Global Era: The Re-invention of Caste in India,” International Journal of Sociology and
Social Policy, 2006, pp. 284–301.
27. For an excellent historical treatment of the evolution of the English class system, see E. P. Thompson, The
Making of the English Working Class (London: Vintage Books, 1966). See also R. Miliband, The State in
Capitalist Society (New York: Basic Books, 1969), especially Chapter 2. For more recent studies of class in
British societies, see Stephen Brook, Class: Knowing Your Place in Modern Britain (London: Victor Gollancz,
1997); A. Adonis and S. Pollard, A Class Act: The Myth of Britain’s Classless Society (London: Hamish
Hamilton, 1997); J. Gerteis and M. Savage, “The Salience of Class in Britain and America: A Comparative
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28. Adonis and Pollard, A Class Act.
29. J. H. Goldthorpe, “Class Analysis and the Reorientation of Class Theory: The Case of Persisting Differentials in
Education Attainment,” British Journal of Sociology, 2010, pp. 311–35.
30. Y. Bian, “Chinese Social Stratification and Social Mobility,” Annual Review of Sociology 28 (2002), pp. 91–117.
31. N. Goodman, An Introduction to Sociology (New York: HarperCollins, 1991).
32. O. C. Ferrell, J. Fraedrich, and L. Ferrell, Business Ethics: Ethical Decision Making and Cases (Mason, OH:
Cengage Learning, 2012).
33. R. J. Barro and R. McCleary, “Religion and Economic Growth across Countries,” American Sociological Review,
October 2003, pp. 760–82; R. McCleary and R. J. Barro, “Religion and Economy,” Journal of Economic
Perspectives, Spring 2006, pp. 49–72.
34. M. Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (New York: Scribner’s, 1958, original 1904–1905).
For an excellent review of Weber’s work, see A. Giddens, Capitalism and Modern Social Theory (Cambridge,
UK: Cambridge University Press, 1971).
35. Weber, Max. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Routledge: Taylor & Francis, 1930.
36. A. S. Thomas and S. L. Mueller, “The Case for Comparative Entrepreneurship,” Journal of International
Business Studies 31, no. 2 (2000), pp. 287–302; S. A. Shane, “Why Do Some Societies Invent More than
Others?” Journal of Business Venturing 7 (1992), pp. 29–46.
37. See S. M. Abbasi, K. W. Hollman, and J. H. Murrey, “Islamic Economics: Foundations and Practices,”
International Journal of Social Economics 16, no. 5 (1990), pp. 5–17; R. H. Dekmejian, Islam in Revolution:
Fundamentalism in the Arab World (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1995).
38. T. W. Lippman, Understanding Islam (New York: Meridian Books, 1995).
39. Dekmejian, Islam in Revolution.
40. M. K. Nydell, Understanding Arabs (Yarmouth, ME: Intercultural Press, 1987).
41. Lippman, Understanding Islam.
42. The material in this section is based largely on Abbasi et al., “Islamic Economics.”
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43. “Sharia Calling,” The Economist, November 12, 2010; N. Popper, “Islamic Banks, Stuffed with Cash,
Explore Partnerships in West,” The New York Times, December 26, 2013.
44. “Forced Devotion,” The Economist, February 17, 2001, pp. 76–77.
45. For details of Weber’s work and views, see Giddens, Capitalism and Modern Social Theory.
46. See, for example, the views expressed in “A Survey of India: The Tiger Steps Out,” The Economist, January 21,
1995.
47. “High-Tech Entrepreneurs Flock to India,” PBS News Hour, February 9, 2014, www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/high-
tech-entrepreneurs-flock-india, accessed March 7, 2014.
48. H. Norberg-Hodge, “Buddhism in the Global Economy,” International Society for Ecology and Culture,
www.localfutures.org/publications/online-articles/buddhism-in-the-global-economy, accessed March 7,
2014.
49. P. Clark, “Zen and the Art of Startup Naming,” Bloomberg Businessweek, August 30, 2013,
www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-08-30/zen-and-the-art-of-startup-naming, accessed March 7, 2014.
50. Clark, Patrick. “Zen and the Art of Startup Naming.” Bloomberg Businessweek, October 9, 2013.
51. Hofstede, Culture’s Consequences.
52. See Dore, Taking Japan Seriously; C. W. L. Hill, “Transaction Cost Economizing as a Source of Comparative
Advantage: The Case of Japan,” Organization Science 6 (1995).
53. C. C. Chen, Y. R. Chen, and K. Xin, “Guanxi Practices and Trust in Management,” Organization Science 15, no.
2 (March–April 2004), pp. 200–10.
54. See Aoki, Information, Incentives, and Bargaining; J. P. Womack, D. T. Jones, and D. Roos, The Machine That
Changed the World (New York: Rawson Associates, 1990).
55. This hypothesis dates back to two anthropologists, Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf. See E. Sapir, “The
Status of Linguistics as a Science,” Language 5 (1929), pp. 207–14; B. L. Whorf, Language, Thought, and
Reality (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1956).
56. The tendency has been documented empirically. See A. Annett, “Social Fractionalization, Political Instability, and
the Size of Government,” IMF Staff Papers 48 (2001), pp. 561–92.
57. D. A. Ricks, Big Business Blunders: Mistakes in Multinational Marketing (Homewood, IL: Dow Jones–Irwin,
1983).
58. Goodman, An Introduction to Sociology.
59. Porter, The Competitive Advantage of Nations.
60. Porter, Michael E. Competitive Advantage of Nations: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance. Simon and
Schuster, 2011.
61. G. Hofstede, “The Cultural Relativity of Organizational Practices and Theories,” Journal of International
Business Studies, Fall 1983, pp. 75–89; G. Hofstede, Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind (New
York: McGraw-Hill USA, 1997); Hofstede, Culture’s Consequences.
62. Hofstede, “The Cultural Relativity of Organizational Practices and Theories”; Hofstede, Cultures and
Organizations.
63. Hofstede, Culture’s Consequences.
64. G. Hofstede and M. Bond, “Hofstede’s Culture Dimensions: An Independent Validation Using Rokeach’s Value
Survey,” Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology 15 (December 1984), pp. 417–33.
65. The factor scores for the long-term versus short-term orientation, using Bond’s survey, were brought into a 0–100
range by a linear transformation (LTO = 50 × F + 50, in which F is the factor score). However, the data for China
came in after Hofstede and Bond had standardized the scale, and they put China outside the range at LTO = 118
(which indicates a very strong long-term orientation).
66. G. Hofstede, G. J. Hofstede, and M. Minkov, Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind, 3d ed. (New
York: McGraw-Hill, 2010).
67. For a more detailed critique, see Mead, International Management, pp. 73–75.
68. For example, see W. J. Bigoness and G. L. Blakely, “A Cross-National Study of Managerial Values,” Journal of
International Business Studies, December 1996, p. 739; D. H. Ralston, D. H. Holt, R. H. Terpstra, and Y. KaiCheng, “The Impact of National Culture and Economic Ideology on Managerial Work Values,” Journal of
International Business Studies 28, no. 1 (1997), pp. 177–208; P. B. Smith, M. F. Peterson, and Z. Ming Wang,
“The Manager as a Mediator of Alternative Meanings,” Journal of International Business Studies 27, no. 1
(1996), pp. 115–37; L. Tang and P. E. Koves, “A Framework to Update Hofstede’s Cultural Value Indices,”
Journal of International Business Studies 39 (2008), pp. 1045–63.
69. R. House, P. Hanges, M. Javidan, P. Dorfman, and V. Gupta, Culture, Leadership, and Organizations: The
GLOBE Study of 62 Societies (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2004); J. Chhokar, F. Brodbeck, and R. House, Culture
and Leadership across the World: The GLOBE Book of In-Depth Studies of 25 Societies (New York: Routledge,
2012).
70. R. Inglehart, Modernization and Postmodernization: Cultural, Economic, and Political Change in 43 Societies
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997). Information and data on the World Values Survey can be found
at www.worldvaluessurvey.org.
71. For evidence of this, see R. Inglehart, “Globalization and Postmodern Values,” The Washington Quarterly,
Winter 2000, pp. 215–28.
72. Mead, International Management, chap. 17.
73. “Free, Young, and Japanese,” The Economist, December 21, 1991.
74. Namenwirth and Weber, Dynamics of Culture; Inglehart, “Globalization and Postmodern Values.”
75. G. Hofstede, “National Cultures in Four Dimensions,” International Studies of Management and Page 131
Organization 13, no. 1 (1983), pp. 46–74; Tang and Koves, “A Framework to Update Hofstede’s
Cultural Value Indices.”
76. See
Inglehart,
“Globalization
and
Postmodern
Values.”
For
updates,
see
www.isr.umich.edu/cps/project_wvs.html.
77. Hofstede, “National Cultures in Four Dimensions.”
78. D. A. Ralston, D. H. Holt, R. H. Terpstra, and Y. Kai-Chung, “The Impact of National Culture and Economic
Ideology on Managerial Work Values,” Journal of International Business Studies, 2007, pp. 1–19.
79. See Leung et al., “Culture and International Business.”
80. Hall and Hall, Understanding Cultural Differences.
81. Porter, The Competitive Advantage of Nations.
82. See Aoki, Information, Incentives, and Bargaining; Dertouzos et al., Made in America; Porter, The Competitive
Advantage of Nations, pp. 395–97.
83. See Dore, Taking Japan Seriously; Hill, “Transaction Cost Economizing as a Source of Comparative Advantage.”
84. For empirical work supporting such a view, see Annett, “Social Fractionalization, Political Instability, and the
Size of Government.”
part two National Differences
Page 132
Ethics, Corporate Social Responsibility, and Sustainability
5
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
After reading this chapter, you will be able to:
LO5-1
Understand the ethical, corporate social responsibility, and sustainability issues faced by international businesses.
LO5-2
Recognize an ethical, corporate social responsibility, and/or sustainability dilemma.
LO5-3
LO5-4
LO5-5
Identify the causes of unethical behavior by managers as they relate to business, corporate social responsibility, or
sustainability.
Describe the different philosophical approaches to business ethics that apply globally.
Explain how global managers can incorporate ethical considerations into their decision making in general, as well as corporate
social responsibility and sustainability initiatives.
Atmosphere1/123RF
Page 133
Ericsson, Sweden, and Sustainability
OPENING CASE
According to Toronto, Canada-based Corporate Knights, which ranks the Top 100 Most Sustainable Corporations, Swedish-based
Ericsson is ranked number 21 in the world for its sustainability efforts. That makes Ericsson, headquartered in Sweden, the topranked multinational corporation for its sustainability efforts, in a country that is ranked at the top on the United Nations’ Sustainable
Development Goals (SDG Index). It says a lot to be the best on sustainability in the country that is itself the best among the world’s
nations when it comes to sustainability. The SDG Index includes 156 of the 195 countries in the world (all countries with reliable data
on the 17 SDG dimensions), while the index by Corporate Knights is based on analyses of some 7,500 corporations with annual
revenues in excess of $1 billion.
Perhaps it is only logical that Ericsson (ericsson.com) would place high in both the world ranking and in Sweden. Ericsson has
integrated the United Nations’ SDGs as part of its framework for how to describe and measure the company’s impact on society. The
view of Ericsson is that the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) that are the core of Ericsson’s products and services
in the global marketplace can help achieve all 17 SDGs. By applying Ericsson’s technology and expertise, the thought is that the
company has made a positive impact and supported those SDGs ratified by 193 UN-member nations in 2015. Specifically, ICT in
combination with a well-integrated corporate sustainability strategy can help tackle a range of global challenges. This thinking is how
Ericsson works with technological advancements to continue being a responsible and relevant driver of positive change on society.
Sweden (Sweden.se) has benefited from Ericsson’s sustainability influence and efforts. The country is consistently ranked
number one in the world regarding sustainability, according to the SDG Index. Sweden is a country of 10 million, with thousands of
coastal islands and inland lakes, along with vast boreal forests and glaciated mountains. It is very protective of its environment, and
its government and corporations spend a great deal of time protecting that environment. For example, more than half of the energy
used in Sweden comes from renewable energy sources. Also, Americans release about four times as much carbon dioxide (CO₂) into
the atmosphere as the average Swede.
Sweden is also a data-rich country, reporting on almost every aspect of each citizen’s daily life. Somewhat uniquely, in Sweden,
which is overflowing with technological advancement, thousands of people have also had microchips inserted into their hands. The
chips are designed to speed up people’s daily routines and make their lives more convenient, by accessing their homes, offices, gyms,
and so on by simply swiping their hands against digital readers. The chips are designed to provide access to almost anything digital
readers will allow, including data collection on sustainability efforts. Such sophisticated data collection permeates Swedish society.
For example, Ericsson has reported on sustainability performance for over 25 years, evolving with the times from environmental
disclosure to the broader “triple bottom line” approach (i.e., environmental, social, and economic development) and, more recently, to
the responsible business practices that Ericsson has adopted.
For the country, Sweden is focused on a sustainability agenda called Climate Roadmap, a direct operationalization of Roadmap
2050, which is an initiative of the European Union (www.roadmap2050.eu): “The mission of (the) Roadmap 2050 project is to
provide a practical, independent and objective analysis of pathways to achieve a low-carbon economy in Europe, in line with the
energy security, environmental and economic goals of the European Union. The Roadmap 2050 project is an initiative of the
European Climate Foundation (ECF).”* To support this initiative, Sweden passed a new climate law that became effective in 2018,
which committed the country to reach carbon neutrality by 2045. Guided by a Climate Policy Council, the law also sets out how the
goals are to be achieved. The climate action plan must be evaluated on an annual basis to reach intermediary emission reduction
targets for 2030 and 2040.
Another unique aspect of Sweden’s sustainability effort is the country’s recycling “revolution.” Swedes recycle 99 percent of
their household waste. Weine Wiqvist, CEO of the Swedish Waste Management and Recycling Association (Avfall Sverige), still
thinks the country and its citizens can do more, however. He argues that about half of all household waste is burned, meaning it is
turned into energy. Wiqvist explains that if the country could instead reuse the materials, the result would be less energy being used to
create a new product than burning the waste for energy. “We are trying to ‘move up the refuse ladder,’ as we say, from burning to
material recycling by promoting recycling and working with authorities,”** he says. Despite the high ratio of burning waste to
reusing it, the positive for Sweden is that waste in landfills is not an issue in the country anymore. All waste is used in some form.
Likewise, when the United Nations launched the SDGs in 2015, Ericsson was there, leading the industry. With expertise in ICT
and a sustainability strategy incorporated into the Ericsson’s business, the company has a strong platform for making decisive
advances. In fact, Ericsson is one of the few organizations in the world that has directly connected each of the 17 SDGs to specific
issues that pertain to the company, and especially the ICT industry that Ericsson operates in. For example, SDG goal 11 is focused on
sustainable cities and communities. In this area, Ericsson states that “ICT can reduce administration costs and improve Page 134
access to key areas such as health care, education and banking, and provide a platform for inclusion.”***
*Roadmap 2050. Roadmap.
**Avfall Sverige/Swedish Institute.
***”Global Goals SDG 11,” Ericsson, 2019, https://www.ericsson.com/en/about-us/sustainability-and-corporate-responsibility/sustainable-development-goals/goal-11.
Sources: Susanne Arvidsson, “Lessons from Sweden in Sustainable Business,” The Conversation, December 11, 2017; Maddy Savage, “The Swedish Wasteland That Is Now a
Sustainability Star,” BBC News, October 3, 201; Klas Ericson, Martin Bauer, and Andreas Scheibenpflug, “How Sweden Lays the Foundation for Sustainable Manufacturing,”
Business Sweden, February 19, 2019; Ben Wilde, “How Sweden Became the World’s Most Sustainable Country: Top 5 Reasons,” Adec Innovations, January 12, 2016; “Energy
Use in Sweden,” Sweden.se, February 19, 2019; Dominic Hogg, “The Dark Truth Behind Sweden’s Revolutionary Recycling Schemes,” The Independent, December 13, 2016;
“Sweden Turns Goal to Reach Carbon Neutrality in 2045 Into Law,” Climate Policy Observer, June 16, 2017.
Introduction
Ethics, corporate social responsibility, and sustainability are intertwined issues facing companies, industries, countries,
and regional societies worldwide. These “social” issues arise frequently in international business, often because business
practices and regulations differ from nation to nation. With regard to lead pollution, for example, what is allowed in
Mexico is outlawed in the United States. The tricky part is also that what is ethical, socially responsible, or sustainable
often is not a legal obligation that companies and countries face.
Instead, “doing good” is often a self-correcting measure that companies or industries place on themselves and
countries adopt as a business model (it may be a legal issue within one country but seldom carries universally to all other
countries in the world). Ultimately, differences in “sustainable” practices can create dilemmas for businesses.
Understanding the nature of these dilemmas and deciding the course of action to pursue when confronted with them is a
central theme in this chapter. We blend a lot of business ethics with corporate social responsibility and sustainability
issues to capture a global understanding of the issues around the world.
global EDGE ONLINE COURSE MODULES
globalEDGE™ has a series of interactive “online course modules”—free educational learning opportunities for business people, policy
officials, and students. These modules focus on issues that are important to international business. Each module includes a wealth of
content, a case study or anecdotes, glossary of terms, questions to consider, and a list of references. See more at
globaledge.msu.edu/reference-desk/online-course-modules. The combination of the textbook and the globalEDGE™ online course
modules serves as an excellent resource that you can use to prepare for NASBITE’s Certified Global Business Professional Credential.
Achieving the industry-leading CGBP credential ensures that employees are able to practice global business at the professional level—
including ethics, corporate social responsibility, and sustainability—required in today’s competitive global environment. View the
questions in the modules as a test of your readiness to achieve the CGBP credential.
These are not easy issues to capture, understand, or even buy into at all times. For example, we know that some toy
manufacturers have been violating safety regulations for decades, and many companies will likewise continue to do so in
the future across all product and industry categories. For the toy industry specifically, time will tell, assuming Page 135
we can track the ingredients in the materials being used to make toys. What we do know is that about a third of
the toys that are exported out of China are often tainted with heavy metals above the norm. Unfortunately, it is not illegal
to use lead, for example, in plastics at this time. It is an ethical issue and perhaps also a sustainability issue—and usually
a voluntary one—that some companies tackle and others choose to sidestep. The obvious reason some companies take
shortcuts is simple math or capitalism—the large size of market opportunities in the toy industry. A basic question then
is: Can it be considered unethical to manufacture toys that include heavy metals that are bad for children to ingest and
come in contact with when using the toys in their proper way? What about corporate social responsibility among a
country’s companies or the companies’ sustainable business practices?
The sustainability dynamics between a country and a company is illustrated in the opening case on Ericsson and
Sweden. Since the ratification by 193 countries in September 2015 of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development
Goals (SDGs), Sweden has performed the best of all countries on the 17 SDGs and accompanying 169 measures.
Meanwhile, Ericsson ranked number 21 in the world in the Top 100 Most Sustainable Corporations, and is the topranked company in Sweden on incorporating sustainability into its strategies. Basically, Sweden provides a superb
infrastructure and resources for companies like Ericsson to implement sustainability practices. This is a huge difference
compared to China and its many toy companies, which operate in less than ideal situations, polluting the environment
and also using heavy metals like lead—which are forbidden in the Unites States and many other countries—to produce
toys for the international marketplace.
The core starting point for this chapter is ethics. Ethics serves as the foundation for what people do or do not do,
and ultimately ethical behavior of employees results in corporate social responsibility and sustainability practices
engaged in by the company. Companies’ involvement in corporate social responsibility practices and sustainability
initiatives can be traced to the ethical foundation of its employees and other stakeholders, such as customers,
shareholders, suppliers, regulators, and communities.1 Ethics refers to accepted principles of right or wrong that govern
the conduct of a person, the members of a profession, or the actions of an organization. Business ethics are the accepted
principles of right and wrong governing the conduct of businesspeople, and an ethical strategy is a strategy, or course of
action, that does not violate these accepted principles.
Broadly, as a start, we look at how ethical issues should be incorporated into decision making in an international
business. We also review the reasons for poor ethical decision making and discuss different philosophical approaches to
business ethics. Then, using the ethical decision-making process as our platform, we present a series of illustrations via
two Management Focus boxes related to Volkswagen and Stora Enso. The chapter closes by reviewing the different
processes that managers can adopt to make sure that ethical considerations are incorporated into decision making in
international business and how these decisions filter into corporate social responsibility and sustainability efforts.
Ethics and International Business
LO5-1
Understand the ethical, corporate social responsibility, and sustainability issues faced by international businesses
Many of the ethical issues in international business are rooted in differences in political systems, laws, Page 136
economic development, and culture across countries. What is considered normal practice in one nation may be
considered unethical in another. Also, what is illegal in one country may even be normal ethical business practice in
another. There are significant reasons why countries and these country-level differences exist—otherwise, we could just
have a one-world mentality, as China does with its “One-China Policy” (i.e., a policy stating there is only one country of
China, despite the fact there are two governments with China in its name: the People’s Republic of China, what is
commonly referred to as China; and the Republic of China, which is commonly referred to as Taiwan). The One-China
Policy has not been universally adopted around the world and, likewise, a one-world policy is unlikely to happen.
Consequently, we will have differences in political systems, laws, economic development, and culture across the globe’s
195 countries.
The unique complexities of legal and ethical differences, in particular, make it incredibly difficult to come up with
global standards for ethics, corporate social responsibility, and sustainability. As we discussed in the opening case on
Ericsson and Sweden, the United Nations did have its 193-member nations ratify the Sustainable Development Goals in
2015, but they are far from being achieved (although the goal is set to be met by 2030). Instead, managers in
multinational corporations need to be particularly sensitive to these systematic country-level differences when they do
business throughout the world. Many businesspeople try to advocate or even enforce their home country view on
companies in other countries without much thinking about the implications for the relationship. In the international
business setting, the most common ethical issues involve employment practices, human rights, environmental
regulations, corruption, and the moral obligation of multinational corporations. We will discuss each.
EMPLOYMENT PRACTICES
When work conditions in another country (host nation) are inferior to those in a multinational corporation’s home nation,
which standards should be applied? Those of the home nation, those of the host nation, or something in between? While
few would suggest that pay and work conditions should be the same across nations, how different can they be before we
find it to be unacceptable? For example, while 12-hour workdays, extremely low pay, and a failure to protect workers
against toxic chemicals may be common in some less developed and so-called emerging nations, does this mean that it is
okay for a multinational company to tolerate such working conditions in its subsidiaries or to condone it by using local
subcontractors in those countries? Without taking into account the potential financial implications, it would be easy to
simply say that every company should be as ethical, socially responsible, and sustainable as its home-country
environment dictates. But it’s not really that simple.
Some time ago, Nike found itself in the center of a storm of protests when news reports revealed that working
conditions at many of its subcontractors were poor. A 48 Hours report on CBS painted a picture of young women who
worked with toxic materials six days a week in poor conditions for only 20 cents an hour at a Vietnamese subcontractor.
The report also stated that a living wage in Vietnam was at least $3 a day, an income that could not be achieved at the
subcontractor without working substantial overtime. Nike and its subcontractors were not breaking any laws, but
questions were raised about the ethics of using “sweatshop labor” to make what were essentially fashion accessories. It
may have been legal, but was it ethical to use subcontractors who, by developed-nation standards, clearly exploited their
workforce? Nike’s critics thought not, and the company found itself the focus of a wave of demonstrations and consumer
boycotts. These exposés surrounding Nike’s use of subcontractors forced the company to reexamine its policies.
Realizing that even though it was breaking no law, its subcontracting policies were perceived as unethical, Nike’s
management established a code of conduct for its subcontractors and instituted annual monitoring by independent
auditors of all subcontractors.2
As the Nike case demonstrates, a strong argument can be made that it is not appropriate for a multinational firm to
tolerate poor working conditions in its foreign operations or those of subcontractors. However, this still leaves
unanswered the question of which standards should be applied. We shall return to and consider this issue in more detail
later in the chapter. For now, note that establishing minimal acceptable standards that safeguard the basic rights and
dignity of employees, auditing foreign subsidiaries and subcontractors on a regular basis to make sure those standards are
met, and taking corrective action if they are not up to standards are a good way to guard against ethical abuses. Page 137
For another example of problems with working practices among suppliers, read the accompanying Management Focus,
which looks at Volkswagen and the company’s staggering public debacle regarding software used to unethically, and in
many cases illegally, lower the output data for air polluting emissions.
HUMAN RIGHTS
Basic human rights still are not respected in a large number of nations, and several historical and current examples exist
to illustrate this point. Rights taken for granted in developed nations, such as freedom of association, freedom of speech,
freedom of assembly, freedom of movement, and freedom from political repression, for example, are not universally
accepted worldwide (see Chapter 2 for details). One of the most obvious historical examples was South Africa during the
days of white rule and apartheid, which did not end until 1994. This may seem like a long time ago, but the effects of the
old system still linger to this day. Also, in many countries today we see an increase in authoritarian populists who are
attacking human rights principles and fueling distrust of democratic institutions.
South Africa represents an example that most people can relate to, remember, or at least know about, and is
relatively easy to understand (compared with authoritarian populist politicians infringing on human rights). The apartheid
system denied basic political rights to the majority nonwhite population of South Africa, mandated segregation between
whites and nonwhites, reserved certain occupations exclusively for whites, and prohibited blacks from being placed in
positions where they would manage whites. Despite the odious nature of this system, businesses from developed nations
operated in South Africa for decades before changes started happening. In the decade prior to apartheid’s abolishment,
however, many questioned the ethics of doing so. They argued that inward investment by foreign multinationals
supported the repressive apartheid regime, at least indirectly, by boosting the South African economy. Thankfully,
several businesses started to change their policies in the 1990s and 2000s.3 Gearing up for the 2030s and beyond, the
assumption is that most businesses will follow the idea of, for example, the United Nation’s all-encompassing
Sustainable Development Goals 2030 (established in September 2015). In doing so, more and more companies are now
using ethical behavior as a core philosophy when competing for work.
General Motors, which had significant activities in South Africa, was at the forefront of this trend. GM adopted
what came to be called the Sullivan principles, named after Leon Sullivan, an African American Baptist minister who
later became a member of GM’s board of directors. Sullivan argued that it was ethically justified for GM to operate in
South Africa so long as two conditions were fulfilled. First, the company should not obey the apartheid laws in its own
South African operations (a form of passive resistance). Second, the company should do everything within its power to
promote the abolition of apartheid laws. As a practical matter, Sullivan’s principles ultimately became widely adopted by
U.S. firms operating in South Africa. The beginning of the end of apartheid, we think, was when these foreign
companies, like GM, violated the South African apartheid laws and the government of South Africa did not take any
action against the companies. Clearly, South Africa did not want to antagonize important foreign investors, which then
led to more and more foreign companies operating in the country choosing to disobey the apartheid laws.
After 10 years, Leon Sullivan concluded that simply following the two principles was not sufficient to break down
the apartheid regime and that American companies, even those adhering to his principles, could not ethically justify their
continued presence in South Africa. Over the next few years, numerous companies divested their South African
operations, including Exxon, General Motors, IBM, and Xerox. At the same time, many state pension funds signaled
they would no longer hold stock in companies that did business in South Africa, which helped persuade several Page 138
companies to divest their South African operations. These divestments, coupled with the imposition of
economic sanctions from the United States and other governments, contributed to the abandonment of white minority
rule and apartheid in South Africa and the introduction of democratic elections in 1994. This is when Nelson Mandela
was elected president of South Africa, after having served 27 years in prison for conspiracy and sabotage to overthrow
the white government of South Africa (Mandela won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993 and passed away in 2013).
Ultimately, adopting an ethical stance by these large multinational corporations was argued to have helped improve
human rights in South Africa.4
MANAGEMENT FOCUS
“Emissionsgate” at Volkswagen
Volkswagen, often abbreviated as VW, is a German automaker founded by the German Labor Front. The company is
headquartered in Wolfsburg. It is the flagship marquee of the Volkswagen Group and, for the first time ever, became the top
automaker in the world in 2017 and has maintained that number one position. Volkswagen said it delivered 10.8 million vehicles
worldwide, while the nearest competitors Renault Nissan Mitsubishi (10.3 million) and Toyota (10.3 million) had very similar
global sales, some 500,000 units below VW (with General Motors following just behind, but with strong sales in China).
To go along with its car numbers, VW had revenue of about $129 billion for these vehicles and an employee workforce of
some 630,000 people. These staggering numbers and the ranking as the top automobile manufacturer in the world came at the
same time Volkswagen was facing perhaps the biggest challenge in its 80-year history (the company was founded in 1937).
Sometimes referred to as “emissionsgate” or “dieselgate,” the Volkswagen emissions scandal began in September 2015 when
the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a notice of violation of the Clean Air Act to the German automaker. EPA
is an agency of the U.S. federal government that was created to protect human health and the environment by writing and
enforcing regulations based on laws passed by the U.S. Congress. The EPA has been around since 1970, although the Trump
administration has proposed a series of more than 40 cuts to the EPA (slashing the EPA workforce by more than 3,000 people and
$2 billion in funding).
In a rather astonishing finding, the EPA determined that Volkswagen had intentionally programmed engines to activate
emissions controls only during lab testing. The unethical programming by VW caused the vehicles’ nitrogen oxide output—which
is the most relevant factor for air pollution standards—to register at lower levels to meet strict U.S. standards during the crucial
laboratory regulatory testing. In reality, the vehicles emitted up to 40 times more NOx on the streets. Volkswagen used this
unethical and very sophisticated computer programming in about 11 million cars worldwide, out of which 500,000 vehicles were
in use in the United States (for model years 2009–2015).
VW went to great lengths to make this work. The software in the cars sensed when the car was being tested in a regulatory lab,
and then the software automatically activated equipment in the vehicle that reduced emissions. Think about that in terms of the
decision making that had to go into making this unethical choice! Additionally, the software turned the car’s equipment down
during regular driving on the streets or highways, resulting in increasing emissions way above legal limits. The only reasoning for
doing this is to save fuel or to improve the car’s torque and acceleration. Thus, not only were the emissions off, and unethically
adjusted, the car’s performance statistics were also affected in a positive way—which, obviously, can be seen as another unethical
decision or by-product of the emissions software.
Raymond Boyd/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
The software was modified to adjust components such as catalytic converters or valves that were used to recycle a portion of
the exhaust gases. These are the components that are meant to reduce emissions of nitrogen oxide, an air pollutant that can cause
emphysema, bronchitis, and several other respiratory diseases. The severity of this air pollution resulted in a $4.3 billion settlement
with U.S. regulators. VW also agreed to sweeping reforms, new audits, and oversight by an independent monitor for three years.
Internally, VW disciplined dozens of engineers, which is interesting because it at least implies that the top-level managers were not
aware of the software installation and unethical use.
Sources: Nathan Bomey, “Volkswagen Passes Toyota as World’s Largest Automaker Despite Scandal,” USA Today, January 30, 2017; Bertel Schmitt, “It’s Official:
Volkswagen Is World‘s Largest Automaker in 2016. Or Maybe Toyota,” Forbes, January 30, 2017; Rob Davis, “Here Are 42 of President Donald Trump’s Planned EPA
Budget Cuts,” The Oregonian, March 2, 2017; “VW Expects to Sanction More Employees in Emissions Scandal: Chairman,” CNBC, March 7, 2017.
Page 139
Although change has come in South Africa, many repressive regimes still exist in the world. In fact, according to
the Freedom House, only about 45 percent of the world’s population of 7.6 billion people are living in free democratic
countries (30 percent are partly free and 25 percent are not free). People in countries that are not considered free by the
Freedom House typically face severe consequences if they try to exercise their most basic rights, such as expressing their
views, assembling peacefully, and organizing independently of the countries in which they live.
This lack of universal freedom in many countries begs the question: Is it ethical for multinational corporations to do
business in these repressive countries? As an answer, it is often argued that inward investment by a multinational can be
a force for economic, political, and social progress that ultimately improves the rights of people in repressive regimes.
This position was first discussed in Chapter 2, when we noted that economic progress in a nation could create pressure
for democratization. In general, this belief suggests that it is ethical for a multinational to do business in nations that lack
the democratic structures and human rights records of developed nations. Investment in China, for example, is frequently
justified on the grounds that although China’s human rights record is often questioned by human rights groups and
although the country is not a democracy, continuing inward investment will help boost economic growth and raise living
standards. These developments will ultimately create pressures from the Chinese people for more participatory
government, political pluralism, and freedom of expression and speech.
There is a limit to this argument. As in the case of South Africa, some regimes are so repressive that investment
cannot be justified on ethical grounds. Another example would be Myanmar (formerly known as Burma). Ruled by a
military dictatorship since 1962, Myanmar has one of the worst human rights records in the world. Beginning in the mid1990s, many companies exited Myanmar, judging the human rights violations to be so extreme that doing business there
could not be justified on ethical grounds. However, a cynic might note that Myanmar has a small economy and that
divestment carries no great economic penalty for firms, unlike, for example, divestment from China. Interestingly, after
decades of pressure from the international community, the military government of Myanmar finally acquiesced and
allowed limited democratic elections to be held, resulting in the country being rated as “partly free” today according to
the Freedom House.
ENVIRONMENTAL POLLUTION
Ethics, social responsibility, and sustainability issues can arise when environmental regulations in host nations are
inferior to those in the home nation. Ethics drive what people decide to do, and corporate social responsibility and
sustainability drive what companies ultimately decide to do. Many developed nations have substantial regulations
governing the emission of pollutants, the dumping of toxic chemicals, the use of toxic materials in the workplace, and so
on. Those regulations are often lacking in developing nations, and, according to critics, the result can be higher levels of
pollution from the operations of multinationals than would be allowed at home.
From a practical and moneymaking standpoint, we can ask: Should a multinational corporation feel free to pollute
in a developing nation? The answer seems simplistic: To do so hardly seems ethical. Is there a danger that Page 140
amoral management might move production to a developing nation precisely because costly pollution controls
are not required and the company is, therefore, free to despoil the environment and perhaps endanger local people in its
quest to lower production costs and gain a competitive advantage? What is the right and moral thing to do in such
circumstances: pollute to gain an economic advantage or make sure that foreign subsidiaries adhere to common standards
regarding pollution controls?
People wearing breathing masks at Tian’anmen Square in China’s capital city, Beijing.
Kevin Frayer/Getty Images News/Getty Images
These questions take on added importance because some parts of the environment are a public good that no one
owns but anyone can despoil. Even so, many companies answer illogically and say that some degree of pollution is
acceptable. If the issue becomes degree of pollution instead of preventing as much pollution as possible, then the
strategic decision has been turned around—everyone will start arguing about the degree that is acceptable instead of what
to do to prevent pollution in the first place. The problematic part of this argument and equation for measuring pollution is
that no one owns the atmosphere or the oceans, but polluting both, no matter where the pollution originates, harms all.5
In such cases, a phenomenon known as the tragedy of the commons becomes applicable. The tragedy of the commons
occurs when a resource held in common by all but owned by no one is overused by individuals, resulting in its
degradation. The phenomenon was first named by Garrett Hardin when describing a particular problem in sixteenthcentury England. Large open areas, called commons, were free for all to use as pasture. The poor put out livestock on
these commons and supplemented their meager incomes. It was advantageous for each to put out more and more
livestock, but the social consequence was far more livestock than the commons could handle. The result was
overgrazing, degradation of the commons, and the loss of this much-needed supplement.6
Corporations can contribute to the global tragedy of the commons by moving production to locations where they are
free to pump pollutants into the atmosphere or dump them in oceans or rivers, thereby harming these valuable global
commons. While such action may be legal, is it ethical? Again, such actions seem to violate basic societal notions of
ethics and corporate social responsibility. This issue is taking on greater importance as concerns about human-induced
global warming move to center stage. Most climate scientists argue that human industrial and commercial activity is
increasing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere; carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, which reflects heat back
to the earth’s surface, warming the globe; and as a result, the average temperature of the earth is increasing. The
accumulated scientific evidence from numerous databases supports this argument.7 Consequently, societies around the
world are starting to restrict the amount of carbon dioxide that can be emitted into the atmosphere as a by-product of
industrial and commercial activity. However, regulations differ from nation to nation. Given this, is it ethical for a
company to try to escape tight emission limits by moving production to a country with lax regulations, when doing so
will contribute to global warming? Again, many would argue that doing so violates basic ethical principles.
CORRUPTION
As noted in Chapter 2, corruption has been a problem in almost every society in history, and it continues to be one
today.8 There always have been and always will be corrupt government officials. International businesses can gain and
have gained economic advantages by making payments to those officials. A classic example concerns a well-publicized
incident involving Carl Kotchian, then president of Lockheed. He made a $12.6 million payment to Japanese Page 141
agents and government officials to secure a large order for Lockheed’s TriStar jet from Nippon Air. When the
payments were discovered, U.S. officials charged Lockheed with falsification of its records and tax violations. Although
such payments were supposed to be an accepted business practice in Japan (they might be viewed as an exceptionally
lavish form of gift giving), the revelations created a scandal there, too. The government ministers in question were
criminally charged, one committed suicide, the government fell in disgrace, and the Japanese people were outraged.
Apparently, such a payment was not an accepted way of doing business in Japan! The payment was nothing more than a
bribe, paid to corrupt officials, to secure a large order that might otherwise have gone to another manufacturer, such as
Boeing. Kotchian clearly engaged in unethical behavior—and to argue that the payment was an “acceptable form of
doing business in Japan” was self-serving and incorrect.
The Lockheed case was the impetus for the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) in the United States,
discussed in Chapter 2. The act outlawed paying of bribes to foreign government officials to gain business, and this was
the case even if other countries’ companies could do it. Some U.S. businesses immediately objected that the act would
put U.S. firms at a competitive disadvantage (there is no evidence that has occurred).9 The act was subsequently
amended to allow for “facilitating payments.” Sometimes known as speed money or grease payments, facilitating
payments are not payments to secure contracts that would not otherwise be secured, nor are they payments to obtain
exclusive preferential treatment. Rather they are payments to ensure receiving the standard treatment that a business
ought to receive from a foreign government but might not due to the obstruction of a foreign official.
The trade and finance ministers from the member states of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and
Development (OECD) later on followed the U.S. lead and adopted the Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign
Public Officials in International Business Transactions.10 The convention, which went into force in 1999, obliges
member states and other signatories to make the bribery of foreign public officials a criminal offense. The convention
excludes facilitating payments made to expedite routine government action.
While facilitating payments, or speed money, are excluded from both the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and the
OECD convention on bribery, the ethical implications of making such payments are unclear. From a practical standpoint,
giving bribes might be the price that must be paid to do a greater good (assuming the investment creates jobs and
assuming the practice is not illegal). Several economists advocate this reasoning, suggesting that in the context of
pervasive and cumbersome regulations in developing countries, corruption may improve efficiency and help growth!
These economists theorize that in a country where preexisting political structures distort or limit the workings of the
market mechanism, corruption in the form of black-marketeering, smuggling, and side payments to government
bureaucrats to “speed up” approval for business investments may enhance welfare.11 Arguments such as this persuaded
the U.S. Congress to exempt facilitating payments from the FCPA.
In contrast, other economists have argued that corruption reduces the returns on business investment and leads to
low economic growth.12 In a country where corruption is common, unproductive bureaucrats who demand side
payments for granting the enterprise permission to operate may siphon off the profits from a business activity. This
reduces businesses’ incentive to invest and may retard a country’s economic growth rate. One study of the connection
between corruption and economic growth in 70 countries found that corruption had a significant negative impact on a
country’s growth rate.13 Another study found that firms that paid more in bribes are likely to spend more, not less,
management time with bureaucrats negotiating regulations and that this tended to raise the costs of the firm.14
Consequently, many multinationals have adopted a zero-tolerance policy. For example, the large oil multinational
BP has a zero-tolerance approach toward facilitating payments. Other corporations have a more nuanced approach. Dow
Corning used to formally state a few years ago in its Code of Conduct that “in countries where local business Page 142
practice dictates such [facilitating] payments and there is no alternative, facilitating payments are to be for the
minimum amount necessary and must be accurately documented and recorded.”15 This statement recognized that
business practices and customs differ from country to country. At the same time, Dow Corning allowed for facilitating
payments when “there is no alternative,” although they were also stated to be strongly discouraged. More recently, the
latest version of Dow Corning’s Code of Conduct has removed the section on “international business guidelines”
altogether, so our assumption has to be that the company is taking a stronger zero-tolerance approach.
At the same time, as with many companies, Dow Corning may have realized that the nuances between a bribe and a
facilitating payment are unclear. Many U.S. companies have sustained FCPA violations due to facilitating payments that
were made but did not fall within the general rules allowing such payments. For example, global freight forwarder Conway paid a $300,000 penalty for making hundreds of what could be considered small payments to various customs
officials in the Philippines. In total, Con-way distributed some $244,000 to these officials who were induced to violate
customs regulations, settle disputes, and not enforce fines for administrative violations.16
TEST PREP
Use SmartBook to help retain what you have learned. Access your Instructor’s Connect course to check out SmartBook
or go to learnsmartadvantage.com for help.
Ethical Dilemmas
LO5-2
Recognize an ethical, corporate social responsibility, and/or sustainability dilemma.
The ethical obligations of a multinational corporation toward employment conditions, human rights, corruption, and
environmental pollution are not always clear-cut. However, what is becoming clear-cut is that managers and their
companies are feeling more of the marketplace pressures from customers and other stakeholders to be transparent in their
ethical decision making. At the same time, there is no universal worldwide agreement about what constitutes accepted
ethical principles. From an international business perspective, some argue that what is ethical depends on one’s cultural
perspective.17 In the United States, it is considered acceptable to execute murderers, but in many cultures, this type of
punishment is not acceptable—execution is viewed as an affront to human dignity, and the death penalty is outlawed.
Many Americans find this attitude strange, but, for example, many Europeans find the American approach barbaric. For
a more busi ness-or iented exam
pl e, cons i der t he pr act i ce of “g i f t g i vi ng” between t he p arti es t o a bus iness negoti ation.
While this is considered right and proper behavior in many Asian cultures, some Westerners view the practice as a form
of bribery and therefore unethical, particularly if the gifts are substantial.
International managers often confront very real ethical dilemmas where the appropriate course of action is not clear.
For example, imagine that a visiting American executive finds that a foreign subsidiary in a poor nation has hired a 12year-old girl to work on a factory floor. Appalled to find that the subsidiary is using child labor in direct violation of the
company’s own ethical code, the American instructs the local manager to replace the child with an adult. The local
manager dutifully complies. The girl, an orphan, who is the only breadwinner for herself and her six-year-old brother, is
unable to find another job, so in desperation she turns to prostitution. Two years later, she dies of AIDS. Had the visiting
American understood the gravity of the girl’s situation, would he still have requested her replacement? Would it have
been better to stick with the status quo and allow the girl to continue working? Probably not, because that would have
violated the reasonable prohibition against child labor found in the company’s own ethical code. What then would have
been the right thing to do? What was the obligation of the executive given this ethical dilemma?
A young girl making cigarettes in Bagan, Myanmar.
Angela N Perryman/Shutterstock
There are no easy answers to these questions. That is the nature of ethical dilemmas—situations in which none of
the available alternatives seems ethically acceptable.18 In this case, employing child labor was not acceptable, Page 143
but given that she was employed, neither was denying the child her only source of income. What this American
executive needs, what all managers need, is a moral compass, or perhaps an ethical algorithm, to guide them through
such an ethical dilemma to find an acceptable solution. Later, we will outline what such a moral compass, or ethical
algorithm, might look like. For now, it is enough to note that ethical dilemmas exist because many real-world decisions
are complex; difficult to frame; and involve first-, second-, and third-order consequences that are hard to quantify. Doing
the right thing, or even knowing what the right thing might be, is often far from easy.19
TEST PREP
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Roots of Unethical Behavior
LO5-3
Identify the causes of unethical behavior by managers as they relate to business, corporate social responsibility, or
sustainability.
Examples are plentiful of international managers behaving in a manner that might be judged unethical in an international
business setting. Why do managers behave in an unethical manner? There is no simple answer to this question because
the causes are complex, but some generalizations can be made and these issues are rooted in six determinants of ethical
behavior: personal ethics, decision-making processes, organizational culture, unrealistic performance goals, leadership,
and societal culture (see Figure 5.1).20
FIGURE 5.1 Determinants of ethical behavior.
PERSONAL ETHICS
Societal business ethics are not divorced from personal ethics, which are the generally accepted principles of right and
wrong governing the conduct of individuals. Personal ethics have an effect on business ethics, which ultimately, as we
will see in the Focus on Managerial Implications section of this chapter, have an effect on a company’s socially
responsible practices and sustainability activities. As individuals, we are typically taught that it is wrong to lie and cheat
—it is unethical—and that it is right to behave with integrity and honor and to stand up for what we believe to be right
and true. This is generally true across societies. The personal ethical code that guides our behavior comes from a number
of sources, including our parents, our schools, our religion, and the media. Our personal ethical code exerts a profound
influence on the way we behave as businesspeople. An individual with a strong sense of personal ethics is less likely to
behave in an unethical manner in a business setting. It follows that the first step to establishing a strong sense Page 144
of business ethics is for a society to emphasize strong personal ethics.
Home-country managers working abroad in multinational firms (expatriate managers) may experience more than
the usual degree of pressure to violate their personal ethics. They are away from their ordinary social context and
supporting culture, and they are psychologically and geographically distant from the parent company. They may be
based in a culture that does not place the same value on ethical norms important in the manager’s home country, and they
may be surrounded by local employees who have less rigorous ethical standards. The parent company may pressure
expatriate managers to meet unrealistic goals that can only be fulfilled by cutting corners or acting unethically. For
example, to meet centrally mandated performance goals, expatriate managers might give bribes to win contracts or might
implement working conditions and environmental controls that are below minimally acceptable standards. Local
managers might encourage the expatriate to adopt such behavior. Due to its geographic distance, the parent company
may be unable to see how expatriate managers are meeting goals or may choose not to see how they are doing so,
allowing such behavior to flourish and persist.
DECISION-MAKING PROCESSES
Several studies of unethical behavior in a business setting have concluded that businesspeople sometimes do not realize
they are behaving unethically, primarily because they simply fail to ask, “Is this decision or action ethical?”21 Instead,
they apply a straightforward business calculus to what they perceive to be a business decision, forgetting that the
decision may also have an important ethical dimension. The fault lies in processes that do not incorporate ethical
considerations into business decision making. This may have been the case at Nike when managers originally made
subcontracting decisions. Those decisions were probably made based on good economic logic. Subcontractors were
probably chosen based on business variables such as cost, delivery, and product quality, but the key managers simply
failed to ask, “How does this subcontractor treat its workforce?” If they thought about the question at all, they probably
reasoned that it was the subcontractor’s concern, not theirs.
To improve ethical decision making in a multinational firm, the best starting point is to better understand how
individuals make decisions that can be considered ethical or unethical in an organizational environment.22 Two
assumptions must be taken into account. First, too often it is assumed that individuals in the workplace make ethical
decisions in the same way as they would if they were home. Second, too often it is assumed that people from different
cultures make ethical decisions following a similar process (see Chapter 4 for more on cultural differences). Both of
these assumptions are problematic. First, within an organization, there are very few individuals who have the freedom
(e.g., power) to decide ethical issues independent of pressures that may exist in an organizational setting (e.g., should we
make a facilitating payment or resort to bribery?). Second, while the process for making an ethical decision may largely
be the same in many countries, the relative emphasis on certain issues is unlikely to be the same. Some cultures may
stress organizational factors (Japan), while others stress individual personal factors (United States), yet some may base a
decision purely on the opportunity (Myanmar) and others base it on the importance to their superiors (India).
ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE
The culture in some businesses does not encourage people to think through the ethical consequences of business
decisions. This brings us to the third cause of unethical behavior in businesses: an organizational culture that
deemphasizes business ethics, reducing all decisions to the purely economic. The term organizational culture refers to
the values and norms that are shared among employees of an organization. You will recall from Chapter 4 that values are
abstract ideas about what a group believes to be good, right, and desirable, while norms are the social rules and
guidelines that prescribe appropriate behavior in particular situations. Just as societies have cultures, so do Page 145
business organizations, as we discussed in Chapter 4. Together, values and norms shape the culture of a
business organization, and that culture has an important influence on the ethics of business decision making.
For example, paying bribes to secure business contracts was long viewed as an acceptable way of doing business
within certain companies. It was, in the words of an investigator of a case against Daimler, “standard business practice”
that permeated much of the organization, including departments such as auditing and finance that were supposed to
detect and halt such behavior. It can be argued that such a widespread practice could have persisted only if the values and
norms of the organization implicitly approved of paying bribes to secure business.
UNREALISTIC PERFORMANCE GOALS
The fourth cause of unethical behavior has already been hinted at: the pressure from the parent company to meet
unrealistic performance goals that can be attained only by cutting corners or acting in an unethical manner. In these
cases, bribery may be viewed as a way to hit challenging performance goals. The combination of an organizational
culture that legitimizes unethical behavior, or at least turns a blind eye to such behavior, and unrealistic performance
goals may be particularly toxic. In such circumstances, there is a greater than average probability that managers will
violate their own personal ethics and engage in unethical behavior. Conversely, an organization’s culture can do just the
opposite and reinforce the need for ethical behavior. At Hewlett-Packard, for example, Bill Hewlett and David Packard,
the company’s founders, propagated a set of values known as The HP Way. These values, which shape the way business
is conducted both within and by the corporation, have an important ethical component. Among other things, they stress
the need for confidence in and respect for people, open communication, and concern for the individual employee.
LEADERSHIP
The Hewlett-Packard example suggests a fifth root cause of unethical behavior: leadership. Leaders help establish the
culture of an organization, and they set the example, rules, and guidelines that others follow as well as the structure and
processes for operating both strategically and in daily operations. Employees often operate and work within a defined
structure with a mindset very much similar to the overall culture of the organization that employs them.
Additionally, employees in business often take their cue from business leaders, and if those leaders do not behave
in an ethical manner, the employees might not either. It is not just what leaders say that matters but what they do or do
not do. What message, then, did the leaders at Daimler send about corrupt practices? Presumably, they did very little to
discourage them and may have encouraged such behavior.
SOCIETAL CULTURE
Societal culture may well have an impact on the propensity of people and organizations to behave in an unethical
manner. One study of 2,700 firms in 24 countries found that there were significant differences among the ethical policies
of firms headquartered in different countries.23 Using Hofstede’s dimensions of social culture (see Chapter 4), the study
found that enterprises headquartered in cultures where individualism and uncertainty avoidance are strong were more
likely to emphasize the importance of behaving ethically than firms headquartered in cultures where masculinity and
power distance are important cultural attributes. Such analysis suggests that enterprises headquartered in a country such
as Russia, which scores high on masculinity and power distance measures, and where corruption is endemic, are more
likely to engage in unethical behavior than enterprises headquartered in Scandinavia.
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Page 146
Philosophical Approaches to Ethics
LO5-4
Describe the different philosophical approaches to business ethics that apply globally.
In this section, we look at several different philosophical approaches to business ethics in the global marketplace.
Basically, all individuals adopt a process for making ethical (or unethical) decisions. This process is based on their
personal philosophical approach to ethics—that is, the underlying moral fabric of the individual.
We begin with what can best be described as straw men, which either deny the value of business ethics or apply the
concept in a very unsatisfactory way. Having discussed and, we hope you agree, dismissed the straw men, we move on to
consider approaches that are favored by most moral philosophers and form the basis for current models of ethical
behavior in international businesses.
STRAW MEN
The straw men approach to business ethics is raised by scholars primarily to demonstrate that they offer inappropriate
guidelines for ethical decision making in a multinational enterprise. Four such approaches to business ethics are
commonly discussed in the literature. These approaches can be characterized as the Friedman doctrine, cultural
relativism, the righteous moralist, and the naive immoralist. All these approaches have some inherent value, but all are
unsatisfactory in important ways. Nevertheless, sometimes companies adopt these approaches.
The Friedman Doctrine
The Nobel Prize–winning economist Milton Friedman wrote an article in The New York Times in 1970 that has since
become a classic straw man example that business ethics scholars outline only to then tear down.24 Friedman’s basic
position is that “the social responsibility of business is to increase profits,” so long as the company stays within the rules
of law. He explicitly rejects the idea that businesses should undertake social expenditures beyond those mandated by the
law and required for the efficient running of a business. For example, his arguments suggest that improving working
conditions beyond the level required by the law and necessary to maximize employee productivity will reduce profits
and is therefore not appropriate. His belief is that a firm should maximize its profits because that is the way to maximize
the returns that accrue to the owners of the firm, its shareholders. If the shareholders then wish to use the proceeds to
make social investments, that is their right, according to Friedman, but managers of the firm should not make that
decision for them.
Although Friedman is talking about social responsibility and “ethical custom,” rather than business ethics per se,
many business ethics scholars equate social responsibility with ethical behavior and thus believe Friedman is also
arguing against business ethics. However, the assumption that Friedman is arguing against ethics is not quite true, for
Friedman does argue that there is only one social responsibility of business: to increase the profitability of the enterprise
so long as it stays within the law, which is taken to mean that it engages in open and free competition without deception
or fraud.25
There is one and only one social responsibility of business—to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its
profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say that it engages in open and free competition without
deception or fraud.26
In other words, Friedman argues that businesses should behave in a socially responsible manner, according to
ethical custom and without deception and fraud.
Critics charge that Friedman’s arguments break down under examination. This is particularly true in international
business, where the “rules of the game” are not well established and differ from country to country. Consider again the
case of sweatshop labor. Child labor may not be against the law in a developing nation, and maximizing productivity
may not require that a multinational firm stop using child labor in that country, but it is still immoral to use child labor
because the practice conflicts with widely held views about what is the right and proper thing to do. Similarly, Page 147
there may be no rules against pollution in a less developed nation and spending money on pollution control
may reduce the profit rate of the firm, but generalized notions of morality would hold that it is still unethical to dump
toxic pollutants into rivers or foul the air with gas releases. In addition to the local consequences of such pollution, which
may have serious health effects for the surrounding population, there is also a global consequence as pollutants degrade
those two global commons so important to us all: the atmosphere and the oceans.
Cultural Relativism
Another straw man often raised by business ethics scholars is cultural relativism, which is the belief that ethics are
nothing more than the reflection of a culture—all ethics are culturally determined—and that accordingly, a firm should
adopt the ethics of the culture in which it is operating.27 This approach is often summarized by the maxim when in
Rome, do as the Romans do. As with Friedman’s approach, cultural relativism does not stand up to a closer look. At its
extreme, cultural relativism suggests that if a culture supports slavery, it is okay to use slave labor in a country. Clearly,
it is not! Cultural relativism implicitly rejects the idea that universal notions of morality transcend different cultures, but
as we argue later in the chapter, some universal notions of morality are found across cultures.
While dismissing cultural relativism in its most sweeping form, some ethicists argue there is residual value in this
approach.28 We agree. As we noted in Chapter 3, societal values and norms do vary from culture to culture, and customs
do differ, so it might follow that certain business practices are ethical in one country but not another. Indeed, the
facilitating payments allowed in the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act can be seen as an acknowledgment that in some
countries, the payment of speed money to government officials is necessary to get business done, and, if not ethically
desirable, it is at least ethically acceptable.
The Righteous Moralist
A righteous moralist claims that a multinational’s home-country standards of ethics are the appropriate ones for
companies to follow in foreign countries. This approach is typically associated with managers from developed nations.
While this seems reasonable at first blush, the approach can create problems. Consider the following example: An
American bank manager was sent to Italy and was appalled to learn that the local branch’s accounting department
recommended grossly underreporting the bank’s profits for income tax purposes.29 The manager insisted that the bank
report its earnings accurately, American style. When he was called by the Italian tax department to the firm’s tax hearing,
he was told the firm owed three times as much tax as it had paid, reflecting the department’s standard assumption that
each firm underreports its earnings by two-thirds. Despite his protests, the new assessment stood. In this case, the
righteous moralist has run into a problem caused by the prevailing cultural norms in the country where he was doing
business. How should he respond? The righteous moralist would argue for maintaining the position, while a more
pragmatic view might be that in this case, the right thing to do is to follow the prevailing cultural norms because there is
a big penalty for not doing so.
The main criticism of the righteous moralist approach is that its proponents go too far. While there are some
universal moral principles that should not be violated, it does not always follow that the appropriate thing to do is adopt
home-country standards. For example, U.S. laws set down strict guidelines with regard to minimum wage and working
conditions. Does this mean it is ethical to apply the same guidelines in a foreign country, paying people the same as they
are paid in the United States, providing the same benefits and working conditions? Probably not, because doing so might
nullify the reason for investing in that country and therefore deny locals the benefits of inward investment by the
multinational. Clearly, a more nuanced approach is needed.
Page 148
The Naive Immoralist
A naive immoralist asserts that if a manager of a multinational sees that firms from other nations are not following
ethical norms in a host nation, that manager should not either. The classic example to illustrate the approach is known as
the drug lord problem. In one variant of this problem, an American manager in Colombia routinely pays off the local
drug lord to guarantee that her plant will not be bombed and that none of her employees will be kidnapped. The manager
argues that such payments are ethically defensible because everyone is doing it.
The objection is twofold. First, to say that an action is ethically justified if everyone is doing it is not sufficient. If
firms in a country routinely employ 12-year-olds and make them work 10-hour days, is it therefore ethically defensible
to do the same? Obviously not, and the company does have a clear choice. It does not have to abide by local practices,
and it can decide not to invest in a country where the practices are particularly odious. Second, the multinational must
recognize that it does have the ability to change the prevailing practice in a country. It can use its power for a positive
moral purpose. This is what BP is doing by adopting a zero-tolerance policy with regard to facilitating payments. BP is
stating that the prevailing practice of making facilitating payments is ethically wrong, and it is incumbent upon the
company to use its power to try to change the standard. While some might argue that such an approach smells of moral
imperialism and a lack of cultural sensitivity, if it is consistent with standards in the global community, it may be
ethically justified.
UTILITARIAN AND KANTIAN ETHICS
In contrast to the straw men just discussed, most moral philosophers see value in utilitarian and Kantian approaches to
business ethics. These approaches were developed in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and although they have
been largely superseded by more modern approaches, they form part of the tradition on which newer approaches have
been constructed.
The utilitarian approach to business ethics dates to philosophers such as David Hume (1711–1776), Jeremy
Bentham (1748–1832), and John Stuart Mill (1806–1873). The utilitarian approach to ethics holds that the moral
worth of actions or practices is determined by their consequences.30 An action is judged desirable if it leads to the best
possible balance of good consequences over bad consequences. Utilitarianism is committed to the maximization of good
and the minimization of harm. Utilitarianism recognizes that actions have multiple consequences, some of which are
good in a social sense and some of which are harmful. As a philosophy for business ethics, it focuses attention on the
need to weigh carefully all the social benefits and costs of business activity and to pursue only those actions where the
benefits outweigh the costs. The best decisions, from a utilitarian perspective, are those that produce the greatest good for
the greatest number of people.
Many businesses have adopted specific tools such as cost-benefit analysis and risk assessment that are firmly rooted
in a utilitarian philosophy. Managers often weigh the benefits and costs of an action before deciding whether to pursue it.
An oil company considering drilling in the Alaskan wildlife preserve must weigh the economic benefits of increased oil
production and the creation of jobs against the costs of environmental degradation in a fragile ecosystem. An agricultural
biotechnology company such as Monsanto must decide whether the benefits of genetically modified crops that produce
natural pesticides outweigh the risks. The benefits include increased crop yields and reduced need for chemical
fertilizers. The risks include the possibility that Monsanto’s insect-resistant crops might make matters worse over time if
insects evolve a resistance to the natural pesticides engineered into Monsanto’s plants, rendering the plants vulnerable to
a new generation of superbugs.
The utilitarian philosophy does have some serious drawbacks as an approach to business ethics. One problem is
measuring the benefits, costs, and risks of a course of action. In the case of an oil company considering drilling in
Alaska, how does one measure the potential harm done to the region’s ecosystem? The second problem with Page 149
utilitarianism is that the philosophy omits the consideration of justice. The action that produces the greatest
good for the greatest number of people may result in the unjustified treatment of a minority. Such action cannot be
ethical, precisely because it is unjust. For example, suppose that in the interests of keeping down health insurance costs,
the government decides to screen people for the HIV virus and deny insurance coverage to those who are HIV positive.
By reducing health costs, such action might produce significant benefits for a large number of people, but the action is
unjust because it discriminates unfairly against a minority.
Kantian ethics is based on the philosophy of Immanuel Kant (1724–1804). Kantian ethics holds that people should
be treated as ends and never purely as means to the ends of others. People are not instruments, like a machine. People
have dignity and need to be respected as such. Employing people in sweatshops, making them work long hours for low
pay in poor working conditions, is a violation of ethics, according to Kantian philosophy, because it treats people as mere
cogs in a machine and not as conscious moral beings that have dignity. Although contemporary moral philosophers tend
to view Kant’s ethical philosophy as incomplete—for example, his system has no place for moral emotions or sentiments
such as sympathy or caring—the notion that people should be respected and treated with dignity resonates in the modern
world.
RIGHTS THEORIES
Developed in the twentieth century, rights theories recognize that human beings have fundamental rights and privileges
that transcend national boundaries and cultures. Rights establish a minimum level of morally acceptable behavior. One
well-known definition of a fundamental right construes it as something that takes precedence over or “trumps” a
collective good. Thus, we might say that the right to free speech is a fundamental right that takes precedence over all but
the most compelling collective goals and overrides, for example, the interest of the state in civil harmony or moral
consensus.31 Moral theorists argue that fundamental human rights form the basis for the moral compass that managers
should navigate by when making decisions that have an ethical component. More precisely, they should not pursue
actions that violate these rights.
The notion that there are fundamental rights that transcend national borders and cultures was the underlying
motivation for the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted in 1948, which has been ratified
by almost every country and lays down principles that should be adhered to irrespective of the culture in which one is
doing business.32 Echoing Kantian ethics, Article 1 of this declaration states
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act
towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.33
Article 23 of this declaration, which relates directly to employment, states:
1. Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favorable conditions of work, and to
protection against unemployment.
2. Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work.
3. Everyone who works has the right to just and favorable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an
existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection.
4. Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.34
Clearly, the rights to “just and favorable conditions of work,” “equal pay for equal work,” and remuneration that
ensures an “existence worthy of human dignity” embodied in Article 23 imply that it is unethical to employ child labor in
sweatshop settings and pay less than subsistence wages, even if that happens to be common practice in some countries.
These are fundamental human rights that transcend national borders.
Page 150
It is important to note that along with rights come obligations. Because we have the right to free speech,
we are also obligated to make sure that we respect the free speech of others. The notion that people have obligations is
stated in Article 29 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
1. Everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his personality is
possible.35
Within the framework of a theory of rights, certain people or institutions are obligated to provide benefits or
services that secure the rights of others. Such obligations also fall on more than one class of moral agent (a moral agent
is any person or institution that is capable of moral action such as a government or corporation).
For example, to escape the high costs of toxic waste disposal in the West, several firms shipped their waste in bulk
to African nations, where it was disposed of at a much lower cost. At one time, five European ships unloaded toxic waste
containing dangerous poisons in Nigeria. Workers wearing sandals and shorts unloaded the barrels for $2.50 a day and
placed them in a dirt lot in a residential area. They were not told about the contents of the barrels.36 Who bears the
obligation for protecting the rights of workers and residents to safety in a case like this? According to rights theorists, the
obligation rests not on the shoulders of one moral agent but on the shoulders of all moral agents whose actions might
harm or contribute to the harm of the workers and residents. Thus, it was the obligation not just of the Nigerian
government but also of the multinational firms that shipped the toxic waste to make sure it did no harm to residents and
workers. In this case, both the government and the multinationals apparently failed to recognize their basic obligation to
protect the fundamental human rights of others.
JUSTICE THEORIES
Justice theories focus on the attainment of a just distribution of economic goods and services. A just distribution is one
that is considered fair and equitable. There is no one theory of justice, and several theories of justice conflict with each
other in important ways.37 Here, we focus on one particular theory of justice that is both very influential and has
important ethical implications. The theory is attributed to philosopher John Rawls.38 Rawls argues that all economic
goods and services should be distributed equally except when an unequal distribution would work to everyone’s
advantage.
According to Rawls, valid principles of justice are those with which all persons would agree if they could freely
and impartially consider the situation. Impartiality is guaranteed by a conceptual device that Rawls calls the veil of
ignorance. Under the veil of ignorance, everyone is imagined to be ignorant of all of his or her particular characteristics,
for example, race, sex, intelligence, nationality, family background, and special talents. Rawls then asks what system
people would design under a veil of ignorance. Under these conditions, people would unanimously agree on two
fundamental principles of justice.
The first principle is that each person is permitted the maximum amount of basic liberty compatible with a similar
liberty for others. Rawls takes these to be political liberty (e.g., the right to vote), freedom of speech and assembly,
liberty of conscience and freedom of thought, the freedom and right to hold personal property, and freedom from
arbitrary arrest and seizure.
The second principle is that once equal basic liberty is ensured, inequality in basic social goods—such as income
and wealth distribution, and opportunities—is to be allowed only if such inequalities benefit everyone. Rawls accepts
that inequalities can be justified if the system that produces inequalities is to the advantage of everyone. More precisely,
he formulates what he calls the difference principle, which is that inequalities are justified if they benefit the position of
the least-advantaged person. So, for example, wide variations in income and wealth can be considered just if the marketbased system that produces this unequal distribution also benefits the least-advantaged members of society. One can
argue that a well-regulated, market-based economy and free trade, by promoting economic growth, benefit the Page 151
least-advantaged members of society. In principle at least, the inequalities inherent in such systems are
therefore just (in other words, the rising tide of wealth created by a market-based economy and free trade lifts all boats,
even those of the most disadvantaged).
In the context of international business ethics, Rawls’ theory creates an interesting perspective. Managers could ask
themselves whether the policies they adopt in foreign operations would be considered just under Rawls’ veil of
ignorance. Is it just, for example, to pay foreign workers less than workers in the firm’s home country? Rawls’ theory
would suggest it is, so long as the inequality benefits the least-advantaged members of the global society (which is what
economic theory suggests). Alternatively, it is difficult to imagine that managers operating under a veil of ignorance
would design a system where foreign employees were paid subsistence wages to work long hours in sweatshop
conditions and where they were exposed to toxic materials. Such working conditions are clearly unjust in Rawls’
framework, and therefore, it is unethical to adopt them. Similarly, operating under a veil of ignorance, most people
would probably design a system that imparts some protection from environmental degradation to important global
commons, such as the oceans, atmosphere, and tropical rain forests. To the extent that this is the case, it follows that it is
unjust, and by extension unethical, for companies to pursue actions that contribute toward extensive degradation of these
commons. Thus, Rawls’ veil of ignorance is a conceptual tool that contributes to the moral compass that managers can
use to help them navigate through difficult ethical dilemmas.
TEST PREP
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or go to learnsmartadvantage.com for help.
FOCUS ON MANAGERIAL IMPLICATIONS
LO5-5
Explain how global managers can incorporate ethical considerations into their decision making in general, as well as
corporate social responsibility and sustainability initiatives.
MAKING ETHICAL DECISIONS INTERNATIONALLY
What, then, is the best way for managers in a multinational corporation to make sure that ethical considerations figure
into international business decisions?
How do managers decide on an ethical course of action when confronted with decisions pertaining to working
conditions, human rights, corruption, and environmental pollution? From an ethical perspective, how do managers
determine the moral obligations that flow from the power of a multinational? In many cases, there are no easy answers to
these questions: Many of the most vexing ethical problems arise because there are very real dilemmas inherent in them
and no obvious correct action. Nevertheless, managers can and should do many things to make sure that basic ethical
principles are adhered to and that ethical issues are routinely inserted into international business decisions.
Here, we focus on seven actions that an international business and its managers can take to make sure ethical issues
are considered in business decisions: (1) favor hiring and promoting people with a well-grounded sense of personal
ethics; (2) build an organizational culture and exemplify leadership behaviors that place a high value on ethical behavior;
(3) put decision-making processes in place that require people to consider the ethical dimension of business decisions;
(4) institute ethics officers in the organization; (5) develop moral courage; (6) make corporate social responsibility a
cornerstone of enterprise policy; and (7) pursue strategies that are sustainable.
Hiring and Promotion
It seems obvious that businesses should strive to hire people who have a strong sense of personal ethics and would not
engage in unethical or illegal behavior. Similarly, you would expect a business to not promote people, and perhaps to fire
people, whose behavior does not match generally accepted ethical standards. However, actually doing so is very difficult.
How do you know that someone has a poor sense of personal ethics? In our society, we have an incentive to hide a lack
of personal ethics from public view. Once people realize that you are unethical, they will no longer trust you.
Is there anything that businesses can do to make sure they do not hire people who subsequently turn out to have
poor personal ethics, particularly given that people have an incentive to hide this from public view (indeed, the Page 152
unethical person may lie about his or her nature)? Businesses can give potential employees psychological tests
to try to discern their ethical predispositions, and they can check with prior employers or other employees regarding
someone’s reputation (e.g., by asking for letters of reference and talking to people who have worked with the prospective
employee). The latter is common and does influence the hiring process. Promoting people who have displayed poor
ethics should not occur in a company where the organizational culture values the need for ethical behavior and where
leaders act accordingly.
Not only should businesses strive to identify and hire people with a strong sense of personal ethics, but it also is in
the interests of prospective employees to find out as much as they can about the ethical climate in an organization. Who
wants to work at a multinational such as Enron, which ultimately entered bankruptcy because unethical executives had
established risky partnerships that were hidden from public view and that existed in part to enrich those same executives?
Organizational Culture and Leadership
To foster ethical behavior, businesses need to build an organizational culture that values ethical behavior. Three things
are particularly important in building an organizational culture that emphasizes ethical behavior. First, the businesses
must explicitly articulate values that emphasize ethical behavior. Virtually all great companies do this by establishing a
code of ethics, which is a formal statement of the ethical priorities a business adheres to. Often, the code of ethics draws
heavily on documents such as the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which itself is grounded in Kantian and
rights-based theories of moral philosophy. Others have incorporated ethical statements into documents that articulate the
values or mission of the business. For example, the Academy of International Business (the top professional organization
in international business) has a Code of Ethics for its leadership (as well as a COE for its members):39
AIB’s Motivation for the Code of Ethics of the Leadership: The leadership of an organization is ultimately responsible for the
creation of the values, norms and practices that permeate the organization and its membership. A strong ethically grounded
organization is only possible when it is governed by a strong ethical committee. The term “committee” is used for succinctness; it
includes all organizational structures that have managerial, custodial, decision-making or financial authority within an
organization.*
Having articulated values in a code of ethics or some other document, leaders in the business must give life and
meaning to those words by repeatedly emphasizing their importance and then acting on them. This means using every
relevant opportunity to stress the importance of business ethics and making sure that key business decisions not only
make good economic sense but also are ethical. Many companies have gone a step further by hiring independent auditors
to make sure they are behaving in a manner consistent with their ethical codes. Nike, for example, has hired independent
auditors to make sure that subcontractors used by the company are living up to Nike’s code of conduct.
Finally, building an organizational culture that places a high value on ethical behavior requires incentive and
reward systems, including promotions that reward people who engage in ethical behavior and sanction those who do not.
At General Electric, for example, former CEO Jack Welch has described how he reviewed the performance of managers,
dividing them into several different groups. These included over-performers who displayed the right values and were
s ingl ed out f or advancement and bonuses, as we l l as over -per f ormer s who di sp l ayed t he wr ong values and were l et go.
Welch was not willing to tolerate leaders within the company who did not act in accordance with the central values of the
company, even if they were in all other respects skilled managers.40
*“Code of Ethics for the Academy of International Business Leadership,” Academy of International Business, October 11, 2018,
ht t ps : // doc uments.aib.msu. edu/ p oli cies /AIB- Leadersh i p-Code-o f -Ethi cs -201 81011 . pdf.
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Decision-Making Processes
In addition to establishing the right kind of ethical culture in an organization, businesspeople must be able to think
through the ethical implications of decisions in a systematic way. To do this, they need a moral compass, and both rights
theories and Rawls’ theory of justice help provide such a compass. Beyond these theories, some experts on ethics have
proposed a straightforward practical guide—or ethical algorithm—to determine whether a decision is ethical.41
According to these experts, a decision is acceptable on ethical grounds if a businessperson can answer yes to each of
these questions:
• Does my decision fall within the accepted values or standards that typically apply in the organizational
environment (as articulated in a code of ethics or some other corporate statement)?
• Am I willing to see the decision communicated to all stakeholders affected by it—for example, by having it
reported in newspapers, on television, or via social media?
• Would the people with whom I have a significant personal relationship, such as family members, friends, or
even managers in other businesses, approve of the decision?
Others have recommended a five-step process to think through ethical problems (this is another example of an
ethical algorithm).42 In step 1, businesspeople should identify which stakeholders a decision would affect and in what
ways. A firm’s stakeholders are individuals or groups that have an interest, claim, or stake in the company, in what it
does, and in how well it performs.43 They can be divided into internal stakeholders and external stakeholders. Internal
stakeholders are individuals or groups who work for or own the business. They include primary stakeholders such as
employees, the board of directors, and shareholders. External stakeholders are all the other individuals and groups that
have some direct or indirect claim on the firm. Typically, this group comprises primary stakeholders such as customers,
suppliers, governments, and local communities as well as secondary stakeholders such as special-interest groups,
competitors, trade associations, mass media, and social media.44
All stakeholders are in an exchange relationship with the company.45 Each stakeholder group supplies the
organization with important resources (or contributions), and in exchange each expects its interests to be satisfied (by
inducements).46 For example, employees provide labor, skills, knowledge, and time and in exchange expect
commensurate income, job satisfaction, job security, and good working conditions. Customers provide a company with
its revenues and in exchange want quality products that represent value for money. Communities provide businesses with
local infrastructure and in exchange want businesses that are responsible citizens and seek some assurance that the
quality of life will be improved as a result of the business firm’s existence.
Stakeholder analysis involves a certain amount of what has been called moral imagination.47 This means standing
in the shoes of a stakeholder and asking how a proposed decision might impact that stakeholder. For example, when
considering outsourcing to subcontractors, managers might need to ask themselves how it might feel to be working under
substandard health conditions for long hours.
Step 2 involves judging the ethics of the proposed strategic decision, given the information gained in step 1.
Managers need to determine whether a proposed decision would violate the fundamental rights of any stakeholders. For
example, we might argue that the right to information about health risks in the workplace is a fundamental entitlement of
employees. Similarly, the right to know about potentially dangerous features of a product is a fundamental entitlement of
customers (something tobacco companies violated when they did not reveal to their customers what they knew about the
health risks of smoking). Managers might also want to ask themselves whether they would allow the proposed strategic
decision if they were designing a system under Rawls’ veil of ignorance. For example, if the issue under consideration
was whether to outsource work to a subcontractor with low pay and poor working conditions, managers might want to
ask themselves whether they would allow such action if they were considering it under a veil of ignorance, where they
themselves might ultimately be the ones to work for the subcontractor.
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The judgment at this stage should be guided by various moral principles that should not be violated. The
principles might be those articulated in a corporate code of ethics or other company documents. In addition, certain
moral principles that we have adopted as members of society—for instance, the prohibition on stealing—should not be
violated. The judgment at this stage will also be guided by the decision rule that is chosen to assess the proposed
strategic decision. Although maximizing long-run profitability is the decision rule that most businesses stress, it should
be applied subject to the constraint that no moral principles are violated—that the business behaves in an ethical manner.
Step 3 requires managers to establish moral intent. This means the business must resolve to place moral concerns
ahead of other concerns in cases where either the fundamental rights of stakeholders or key moral principles have been
violated. At this stage, input from top management might be particularly valuable. Without the proactive encouragement
of top managers, middle-level managers might tend to place the narrow economic interests of the company before the
interests of stakeholders. They might do so in the (usually erroneous) belief that top managers favor such an approach.
Step 4 requires the company to engage in ethical behavior. Step 5 requires the business to audit its decisions,
reviewing them to make sure they were consistent with ethical principles, such as those stated in the company’s code of
ethics. This final step is critical and often overlooked. Without auditing past decisions, businesspeople may not know if
their decision process is working and if changes should be made to ensure greater compliance with a code of ethics.
Ethics Officers
To make sure that a business behaves in an ethical manner, firms now must have oversight by a high-ranking person or
people known to respect legal and ethical standards. These individuals—often referred to as ethics officers—are
responsible for managing their organization’s ethics and legal compliance programs. They are typically responsible for
(1) assessing the needs and risks that an ethics program must address; (2) developing and distributing a code of ethics;
(3) conducting training programs for employees; (4) establishing and maintaining a confidential service to address
employees’ questions about issues that may be ethical or unethical; (5) making sure that the organization is in
compliance with government laws and regulations; (6) monitoring and auditing ethical conduct; (7) taking action, as
appropriate, on possible violations; and (8) reviewing and updating the code of ethics periodically.48 Because of these
broad topics covered by the ethics officer, in many businesses ethics officers act as an internal ombudsperson with
responsibility for handling confidential inquiries from employees, investigating complaints from employees or others,
reporting findings, and making recommendations for change.
For example, United Technologies, a multinational aerospace company with worldwide revenues of more than $60
billion, has had a formal code of ethics since 1990.49 United Technologies has some 450 business practice officers (the
company’s name for ethics officers), who are responsible for making sure the code is followed. United Technologies also
established an “ombudsperson” program in 1986 that lets employees inquire anonymously about ethics issues. The
program has received some 60,000 inquiries since 1986, and more than 10,000 cases have been handled by the
ombudsperson. These very early initiatives by United Technologies have led to a robust, ethical, and responsible
corporate infrastructure.
Moral Courage
It is important to recognize that employees in an international business may need significant moral courage. Moral
courage enables managers to walk away from a decision that is profitable but unethical. Moral courage gives an
employee the strength to say no to a superior who instructs her to pursue actions that are unethical. Moral courage gives
employees the integrity to go public to the media and blow the whistle on persistent unethical behavior in a company.
Moral courage does not come easily; there are well-known cases where individuals have lost their jobs because they
blew the whistle on corporate behaviors they thought unethical, telling the media about what was occurring.50 Page 155
However, companies can strengthen the moral courage of employees by committing themselves to not
retaliate against employees who exercise moral courage, say no to superiors, or otherwise complain about unethical
actions. For example, consider the following excerpt from the Academy of International Business Code of Ethics:
AIB Statement of Commitment by Its Leadership: In establishing policy for and on behalf of the Academy of International
Business’s members, I am a custodian in trust of the assets of this organization. The AIB’s members recognize the need for
competent and committed elected committee members to serve their organization and have put their trust in my sincerity and
abilities. In return, the members deserve my utmost effort, dedication, and support. Therefore, as a committee member of the
AIB, I acknowledge and commit that I will observe a high standard of ethics and conduct as I devote my best efforts, skills and
resources in the interest of the AIB and its members. I will perform my duties as a committee member in such a manner that the
members’ confidence and trust in the integrity, objectivity and impartiality of the AIB are conserved and enhanced. To do
otherwise would be a breach of the trust which the membership has bestowed upon me.51
This statement ensures that all members serving in leadership positions within the Academy of International
Business adhere to and uphold the highest commitment and responsibility to be ethical in their AIB leadership activities.
A freestanding and independent AIB Ombuds Committee handles all ethical issues and violations to ensure
independence and the highest moral code.
Corporate Social Responsibility
Multinational corporations have power that comes from their control over resources and their ability to move production
from country to country. Although that power is constrained not only by laws and regulations but also by the discipline
of the market and the competitive process, it is substantial. Some moral philosophers argue that with power comes the
social responsibility for multinationals to give something back to the societies that enable them to prosper and grow.
The concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR) refers to the idea that businesspeople should consider the
social consequences of economic actions when making business decisions and that there should be a presumption in
favor of decisions that have both good economic and social consequences.52 In its purest form, corporate social
responsibility can be supported for its own sake simply because it is the right way for a business to behave. Advocates of
this approach argue that businesses, particularly large successful businesses, need to recognize their noblesse oblige and
give something back to the societies that have made their success possible. Noblesse oblige is a French term that refers to
honorable and benevolent behavior considered the responsibility of people of high (noble) birth. In a business setting, it
is taken to mean benevolent behavior that is the responsibility of successful enterprises. This has long been recognized by
many businesspeople, resulting in a substantial and venerable history of corporate giving to society, with businesses
making social investments designed to enhance the welfare of the communities in which they operate.
Power itself is morally neutral; how power is used is what matters. It can be used in a positive way to increase
social welfare, which is ethical, or it can be used in a manner that is ethically and morally suspect. Managers at some
multinationals have acknowledged a moral obligation to use their power to enhance social welfare in the communities
where they do business. BP, one of the world’s largest oil companies, has made it part of the company policy to
undertake “social investments” in the countries where it does business.53 In Algeria, BP has been investing in a major
project to develop gas fields near the desert town of Salah. When the company noticed the lack of clean water in Salah, it
built two desalination plants to provide drinking water for the local community and distributed containers to residents so
they could take water from the plants to their homes. There was no economic reason for BP to make this social
investment, but the company believes it is morally obligated to use its power in constructive ways. The action, while a
small thing for BP, is a very important thing for the local community. For another example of corporate social
responsibility in practice, see the accompanying Management Focus feature on the Finnish company Stora Enso.
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MANAGEMENT FOCUS
Corporate Social Responsibility at Stora Enso
Stora Enso is a Finnish pulp and paper manufacturer that was formed by the merger of Swedish mining and forestry products
company Stora and Finnish forestry products company Enso-Gutzeit Oy in 1998. The company is headquartered in Helsinki, the
capital of Finland, and it has approximately 25,000 employees. In 2000, the company bought Consolidated Papers in North
America. Stora Enso also expanded into South America, Asia, and Russia. By 2005, Stora Enso had become the world’s largest
pulp and paper manufacturer as measured by production capacity. However, the North American operations were sold in 2007 to
NewPage Corporation.
To this day, Stora Enso has a long-standing tradition of corporate social responsibility on a global scale. As part of the
company’s section “Global Responsibility in Stora Enso,” the company states that “for Stora Enso, Global Responsibility means
realizing concrete actions that will help us fulfil [sic] our Purpose, which is to do good for the people and the planet.” Stora Enso
continues to state:
Our purpose “do good for the people and the planet” is the ultimate reason why we run our business. It is the overriding
rule that guides us in all that we do: producing and selling our renewable products, buying trees from a local forestowner in Finland, selling electricity generated at Stora Enso Skoghall Mill, or managing our logistics on a global
scale.54
Interestingly, Stora Enso also asserts that it realizes that this statement is rather bold and perhaps not even fully believable. But
the company suggests that it makes the company accountable for its actions; that is, setting its purpose boldly in writing. At the
same time, Stora Enso positions the company as though it has always been attending to the “socially responsible” needs of doing
good for the people and the planet. It illustrates this by maintaining that it has created and enhanced communities around its mills,
developed innovative systems to reduce the use of scarce resources, and maintained good relationships with key stakeholders such
as forest owners, their own employees, governments, and local communities near its mills.
Tracing its past and reflecting on its future, Stora Enso has adopted three lead areas for its global responsibility strategy:
people and ethics, forests and land use, and environment and efficiency. For people and ethics, the company focuses on conducting
business in a socially responsible manner throughout its global value chain. For forests and land use, it focuses on an innovative
and responsible approach on forestry and land use to make it a preferred partner and a good local community citizen. For the
environment and efficiency, the focus is on resource-efficient operations that help the company achieve superior environmental
performance related to its products.
While a number of companies have corporate social responsibility statements incorporated as part of their websites, annual
reports, and talking points, Stora Enso also presents clear targets and performance goals that are assessed by established metrics.
Its overall operations are guided by corporate-level targets for environmental and social performance, aptly named Stora Enso’s
Global Responsibility Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). Targets are publicly listed in a document titled “Targets and
Performance” and include two to five basic categories of measures for each of the three lead areas. For people and ethics, the
dimensions cover health and safety, human rights, ethics and compliance, sustainable leadership, and responsible sourcing. For
forests and land use, the dimensions cover efficiency of land use and sustainable forestry. For environment and efficiency, the
dimensions cover climate and energy, material efficiency, and process water discharges. The “Targets and Performance” document
also lists performance in the prior year, targets in the current year, and strategic objectives related to each dimension.
Sources: “Global Responsibility in Stora Enso,” www.storaenso.com; K. Vita, “Stora Enso Falls as UBS Plays Down Merger Talk: Helsinki Mover,” Bloomberg
Businessweek, September 30, 2013; M. Huuhtanen, “Paper Maker Stora Enso Selling North American Mills,” USA Today, September 21, 2007.
Sustainability
Page 157
As managers in international businesses strive to translate ideas about corporate social responsibility into
strategic actions, many are gravitating toward strategies that are viewed as sustainable. By sustainable strategies, we
refer to strategies that not only help the multinational firm make good profits, but that also do so without harming the
environment while simultaneously ensuring that the corporation acts in a socially responsible manner with regard to its
stakeholders.55 The core idea of sustainability is that the organization—through its actions—does not exert a negative
impact on the ability of future generations to meet their own economic needs and that its actions impart long-run
economic and social benefits on stakeholders.56
A company pursuing a sustainable strategy would not adopt business practices that deplete the environment for
short-term economic gain because doing so would impose a cost on future generations. In other words, international
businesses that pursue sustainable strategies try to ensure that they do not precipitate or participate in a situation that
results in a tragedy of the commons Thus, for example, a company pursuing a sustainable strategy would try to reduce its
carbon footprint (CO2 emissions) so that it does not contribute to global warming.
Nor would a company pursuing a sustainable strategy adopt policies that negatively affect the well-being of key
stakeholders such as employees and suppliers because managers would recognize that in the long run, this would harm
the company. The company that pays its employees so little that it forces them into poverty, for example, may find it
hard to recruit employees in the future and may have to deal with high employee turnover, which imposes its own costs
on an enterprise. Similarly, a company that drives down the prices it pays to its suppliers so far that the suppliers cannot
make enough money to invest in upgrading their operations may find that in the long run, its business suffers poorquality inputs and a lack of innovation among its
supplier base.
Starbucks has a goal of ensuring that 100 percent of its coffee is ethically sourced. By this, it means that the farmers
who grow the coffee beans it purchases use sustainable farming methods that do not harm the environment and that they
treat their employees well and pay them fairly. Starbucks agronomists work directly with farmers in places such as Costa
Rica and Rwanda to make sure that they use environmentally responsible farming methods. The company also provides
loans to farmers to help them upgrade their production methods. As a result of these policies, some 9 percent of
Starbucks coffee beans are “fair trade” sourced and the remaining 91 percent are ethically sourced.
Key Terms
business ethics, p. 135
ethical strategy, p. 135
Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), p. 141
Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions, p. 141
ethical dilemma, p. 142
organizational culture, p. 144
cultural relativism, p. 147
righteous moralist, p. 147
naive immoralist, p. 148
utilitarian approach to ethics, p. 148
Kantian ethics, p. 149
rights theories, p. 149
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, p. 149
just distribution, p. 150
code of ethics, p. 152
stakeholders, p. 153
internal stakeholders, p. 153
external stakeholders, p. 153
corporate social responsibility (CSR), p. 155
sustainable strategies, p. 157
Page 158
SUMMARY
This chapter discussed the source and nature of ethical issues in international businesses, the different philosophical
approaches to business ethics, the steps managers can take to ensure that ethical issues are respected in international
business decisions, and the roles of corporate social responsibility and sustainability in practice. The chapter made
the following points:
1. The term ethics refers to accepted principles of right or wrong that govern the conduct of a person, the
members of a profession, or the actions of an organization. Business ethics are the accepted principles of right
or wrong governing the conduct of businesspeople. An ethical strategy is one that does not violate these
accepted principles.
2. Ethical issues and dilemmas in international business are rooted in the variations among political systems,
law, economic development, and culture from country to country.
3. The most common ethical issues in international business involve employment practices, human rights,
environmental regulations, corruption, and social responsibility of multinational corporations.
4. Ethical dilemmas are situations in which none of the available alternatives seems ethically acceptable.
5. Unethical behavior is rooted in personal ethics, societal culture, psychological and geographic distances of a
foreign subsidiary from the home office, a failure to incorporate ethical issues into strategic and operational
decision making, a dysfunctional culture, and failure of leaders to act in an ethical manner.
6. Moral philosophers contend that approaches to business ethics such as the Friedman doctrine, cultural
relativism, the righteous moralist, and the naive immoralist are unsatisfactory in important ways.
7. The Friedman doctrine states that the only social responsibility of business is to increase profits, as long as the
company stays within the rules of law. Cultural relativism contends that one should adopt the ethics of the
culture in which one is doing business. The righteous moralist monolithically applies home-country ethics to a
foreign situation, while the naive immoralist believes that if a manager of a multinational sees that firms from
other nations are not following ethical norms in a host nation, that manager should not either.
8. Utilitarian approaches to ethics hold that the moral worth of actions or practices is determined by their
consequences, and the best decisions are those that produce the greatest good for the greatest number of
people.
9. Kantian ethics state that people should be treated as ends and never purely as means to the ends of others.
People are not instruments, like a machine. People have dignity and need to be respected as such.
10. Rights theories recognize that human beings have fundamental rights and privileges that transcend national
boundaries and cultures. These rights establish a minimum level of morally acceptable behavior.
11. The concept of justice developed by John Rawls suggests that a decision is just and ethical if people would
allow it when designing a social system under a veil of ignorance.
12. To make sure that ethical issues are considered in international business decisions, managers should (a) favor
hiring and promoting people with a well-grounded sense of personal ethics, (b) build an organizational culture
and exemplify leadership behaviors that place a high value on ethical behavior, (c) put
deci si on making processes in place that require people to consider the ethical dimension of business decisions, (d)
establish ethics officers in the organization with responsibility for ethical decision making, (e) be morally
courageous and encourage others to do the same, (f) make corporate social responsibility a cornerstone of
enterprise policy, and (g) pursue strategies that are sustainable.
13. Multinational corporations that are practicing business-focused sustainability integrate a focus on market
orientation, addressing the needs of multiple stakeholders, and adhering to corporate social responsibility
principles.
Critical Thinking and Discussion Questions
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1. A visiting American executive finds that a foreign subsidiary in a less developed country has hired a 12-yearold girl to work on a factory floor, in violation of the company’s prohibition on child labor. He tells the local
manager to replace the child and tell her to go back to school. The local manager tells the American executive
that the child is an orphan with no other means of support, and she will probably become a street child if she is
denied work. What should the American executive do?
2. Drawing on John Rawls’s concept of the veil of ignorance, develop an ethical code that will (a) guide the
decisions of a large oil multinational toward environmental protection and (b) influence the policies of a
clothing company in their potential decision of outsourcing their manufacturing operations.
3. Under what conditions is it ethically defensible to outsource production to the developing world where labor
costs are lower when such actions also involve laying off long-term employees in the firm’s home country?
4. Do you think facilitating payments (speed payments) should be ethical? Does it matter in which country, or
part of the world, such payments are made?
5. A manager from a developing country is overseeing a multinational’s operations in a country where drug
trafficking and lawlessness are rife. One day, a representative of a local “big man” approaches the manager
and asks for a “donation” to help the big man provide housing for the poor. The representative tells the
manager that in return for the donation, the big man will make sure that the manager has a productive stay in
his country. No threats are made, but the manager is well aware that the big man heads a criminal organization
that is engaged in drug trafficking. He also knows that the big man does indeed help the poor in the rundown
neighborhood of the city where he was born. What should the manager do?
6. Milton Friedman stated in his famous article in The New York Times in 1970 that “the social responsibility of
business is to increase profits.”* Do you agree? If not, do you prefer that multinational corporations adopt a
focus on corporate social responsibility or sustainability practices?
7. Can a company be good at corporate social responsibility but not be sustainability oriented? Is it possible to
focus on sustainability but not corporate social responsibility? Based on reading the Focus on Managerial
Implications section, discuss how much CSR and sustainability are related and how much the concepts differ
from each other.
*M. Friedman, “The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Profits,” The New York Times Magazine, September 13, 1970.
global EDGE research
task globaledge.msu.edu
Use the globalEDGE™ website (globaledge.msu.edu) to complete the following exercises:
1. Promoting respect for universal human rights is a central dimension of many countries’ foreign policy. As
history has shown, human rights abuses are an important concern worldwide. Some countries are more ready
to work with other governments and civil society organizations to prevent abuses of power. The annual
Country Reports on Human Rights Practices are designed to assess the state of democracy and human rights
around the world, call attention to violations, and—where needed—prompt needed changes in U.S. policies
toward particular countries. Find the latest annual Country Reports on Human Right Practices for the BRIC
countries (Brazil, Russia, India, and China), and create a table to compare the findings under the “Worker
Rights” sections. What commonalities do you see? What differences are there?
2. The use of bribery in the business setting is an important ethical dilemma many companies face both
domestically and abroad. The Bribe Payers Index is a study published every three years to assess the
likelihood of firms from leading economies to win business overseas by offering bribes. It also ranks industry
sectors based on the prevalence of bribery. Compare the five industries thought to have the largest problems
with bribery with those five that have the least problems. What patterns do you see? What factors make some
industries more conducive to bribery than others?
CLOSING CASE
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Sustainability Initiatives at Natura, The Body Shop, and Aesop
Corporate Knights, a research firm from Toronto, Canada, puts together the Global 100, a ranking of the world’s most
sustainable companies, based on annual data analytics. Using data available publicly, Corporate Knights rates large firms
on 17 key measures, evaluating their management of resources, finances, and employees (e.g., energy, carbon footprint,
water use, waste productivity, clean air). They consider about 4,000 companies worldwide with market values of at least
$2 billion.
For several years, Natura & Co SA from Brazil has been among the world’s leaders, regularly ranking in the Top
20 each year. This is an incredibly admirable feat, because Natura is also the world’s largest cosmetics company.
Cosmetics has a lot of potential to be less than sustainable in manufacturing and operations, but Natura has bucked that
trend. Natura (naturaeco.com), headquartered in São Paulo, Brazil, was founded in 1969. The company has more than
18,000 employees and revenue of about $4.4 billion. Natura has three prominent subsidiaries that strive to be as
sustainable in their operations as possible: Natura Cosmetics, The Body Shop, and Aesop. The latter two brands are often
viewed as standalone organizations by customers.
Natura Cosmetics develops, produces, distributes, and sells cosmetics, fragrances, and hygiene products. Natura’s
products include creams, deodorants, lipsticks, lotions, makeup accessories, perfumes, shampoos, shaving creams, soaps,
and sunscreens, among others. Its portfolio is made up of brand names such as Amo, Ekos, Tododia, Aguas, Chronos,
Erva Doce, Homem, Horus, Seve, and Luna. The company employs more than 7,000 people in seven countries: Brazil,
Argentina, Chile, Mexico, Peru, Colombia, and France. Sustainable development has been Natura’s guiding principle
since it was founded. Sustainability, along with a passion for Customer Relationship Management (CRM), led the
company to adopt direct sales as its main commercial strategy. To support its direct sales model, more than 1,421,000
consultants around the world promote the company’s values and products directly to customers. To be sustainable,
innovation is at the heart of Natura’s development policy. For example, last year the company spent about $75 million on
product development, launching 164 products and achieving an innovation index of 64.8 percent (the percentage of
revenue from products launched in the last two years).
The Body Shop is a well-known, formerly British cosmetics, skin care, and perfume company that was founded in
1976 by Anita and Gordon Roddick. The company offers more than 1,000 products, which it sells in some 3,100 owned
and franchised stores in 66 countries. The Body Shop is still based in East Croydon and Littlehampton in the United
Kingdom, but was bought from French cosmetics company L’Oréal (which owned The Body Shop from 2006 to 2017)
by Natura in June 2017 for $1.2 billion (£880 million). Famously, The Body Shop has been a leader in banning animal
testing of cosmetics products worldwide since the 1980s and is tirelessly working to ban animal testing in the cosmetics
industry. This position also feeds into its sustainability initiatives. Anita Roddick said that “My hope for the future of
The Body Shop is primarily vested in those people who will be the custodians of our culture and values.”* This
custodianship includes the pledge of being the world’s most ethical, sustainable company. For example, The Body Shop
has unveiled an “Enrich Not Exploit” slogan that will underpin all aspects of its operations. This pioneering commitment
reaffirmed the global cosmetics brand’s positioning as a leader in ethical and sustainable business practices.
Aesop was founded by hairdresser Dennis Paphitis in 1987 in Melbourne, Australia. Suzanne Santos, as Aesop’s
first employee, was also instrumental in the foundation and growth of the company. Aesop is viewed as an Australian
skin care brand, owned fully by Natura since 2016 (although Natura had part ownership since 2012). The brand has been
identified as unique in the way it markets itself in today’s social media world. In a somewhat unorthodox way, this
includes not using traditional advertisements or discount sales to promote its products. Instead, Aesop gets its
promotional communication mostly by word-of-mouth for the design of its products, stores, and events, which are a
singular mix of indulgent product experiences, thoughtful language, and modern minimalist design (compare this with
the Swedish furniture giant IKEA that often receives similar reviews of minimalist but superb design in the furniture
business).
With its core subsidiaries (Natura Cosmetics, The Body Shop, and Aesop), Natura & Co SA has redefined success
in business on a global scale. It was the first publicly traded company to become a “Certified B Corporation.” Page 161
A Certified B Corporation is a company that focuses on two specific sustainability issues. First, it has reached
a threshold standard for its impact on society and the environment. Second, the company must have committed to
consider the impact of its business decisions on its wider stakeholders, not just its shareholders. Currently, only 2,200 B
Corps exist worldwide, and their core sustainability focus is on the interdependence between society, environment, and
economy. Importantly, Natura’s actions show that it is possible to make a positive difference for the environment while
also ensuring the financial viability of the company through profit making. This mindset also drove Natura’s purchase of
The Body Shop in 2017, the first billion-dollar B Corp acquisition by another B Corp.
*Roddick, Anita Dame, “Building For The Future. Our Values Performance 2014/2015 & Our New Commitment,” The Body Shop, 2016.
Sources: Deanna Utroske, “The Body Shop Launches New Campaign for UN Animal Testing Ban,” Cosmetics Design, March 22, 2018; Andres Schipani, “Body Shop Owner Natura
Targets Global Growth,” Financial Times, February 4, 2018; Corporate Knights, “2018 Global 100 Results,” www.corporateknights.com/reports/2018-global-100; “The Body Shop
Marks 40th Year with Pledge to Be World’s Most Ethical, Sustainable Global Company,” Sustainable Brands, February 12, 2016; Charmain Love, Katie Hill, and Marcel Fukayama,
“Building Bridges: Natura, Aesop and The Body Shop Join Their Businesses as Forces for Good,” B the Change, September 13, 2017.
CASE DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. With its three core companies (Natura Cosmetics, The Body Shop, and Aesop), Natura & Co SA blends three
different business models for interacting with the customer. In the end, all three models are focused on sustainable
business practices. What can other companies learn from Natura & Co SA on how to be sustainable?
2. The Body Shop has been a leader in banning animal testing of cosmetics products worldwide since the 1980s and
is tirelessly working to ban animal testing in the cosmetics industry. Is this part of being sustainable or is animal
testing a different focus?
3. Aesop is not using traditional advertisements or discount sales to promote its products. Instead, Aesop gets its
promotional communication mostly by word-of-mouth for the design of its products, stores, and events, which are
a singular mix of indulgent product experiences, thoughtful language, and modern minimalist design. If you had
to interact with Natura & Co SA, which customer engagement model—Natura’s, The Body Shop’s, or Aesop’s—
would be the best for you and why?
4. How much would it mean to you that a company operated in a sustainable way? Would you pay 5 percent, 10
p er ce nt , o r 25 perc ent m
ore f or a pr oduc t i f t he qual ity was t he s ame as non-s us tai nabl e alt ernat ives ? What i f t he
quality of the product was lower but the price the same?
Design elements: Modern textured halftone: ©VIPRESIONA/Shutterstock; globalEDGE icon: ©globalEDGE; All others: ©McGraw-Hill Education
Endnotes
1. T. Hult, “Market-Focused Sustainability: Market Orientation Plus!” Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science
39 (2011) , pp. 1 –6; T . Hult , J. M
ena, O. C. Ferre ll, and L. Fer rel l,
Conceptual Framework,” AMS Review 1 (2011), pp. 44–65.
2. S. Greenhouse, “Nike Shoe Plant in Vietnam Is Called Unsafe for Workers,” The New York Times, November 8,
1997; V. Dobnik, “Chinese Workers Abused Making Nikes, Reeboks,” Seattle Times, September 21, 1997, p. A4.
3. R. K. Massie, Loosing the Bonds: The United States and South Africa in the Apartheid Years (New York:
Doubleday, 1997).
4. Not everyone agrees that the divestment trend had much influence on the South African economy. For a
counterview, see S. H. Teoh, I. Welch, and C. P. Wazzan, “The Effect of Socially Activist Investing on the
Financial Markets: Evidence from South Africa,” The Journal of Business 72, no. 1 (January 1999), pp. 35–60.
5. Peter Singer, One World: The Ethics of Globalization (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2002).
6. Garrett Hardin, “The Tragedy of the Commons,” Science 162, no. 1 (1968), pp. 243–48.
7. For a summary of the evidence, see S. Solomon, D. Qin, M. Manning, Z. Chen, M. Marquis, K. B. Averyt, M.
Tignor, and H. L. Miller, eds., Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2007).
8. J. Everett, D. Neu, and A. S. Rahaman, “The Global Fight against Corruption,” Journal of Business Ethics 65
(2006), pp. 1–18.
Page 162
9. R. T. De George, Competing with Integrity in International Business (Oxford, UK: Oxford University
Press, 1993).
10. Details can be found at www.oecd.org/corruption/oecdantibriberyconvention.htm.
11. B. Pranab, “Corruption and Development,” Journal of Economic Literature 36 (September 1997), pp. 1320–46.
12. A. Shleifer and R. W. Vishny, “Corruption,” Quarterly Journal of Economics 108 (1993), pp. 599–617; I. Ehrlich
and F. Lui, “Bureaucratic Corruption and Endogenous Economic Growth,” Journal of Political Economy 107
(December 1999), pp. 270–92.
13. P. Mauro, “Corruption and Growth,” Quarterly Journal of Economics 110 (1995), pp. 681–712.
14. D. Kaufman and S. J. Wei, “Does Grease Money Speed up the Wheels of Commerce?” World Bank policy
research working paper, January 11, 2000.
15. Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions, http://ethics.iit.edu.
16. B. Vitou, R. Kovalevsky, and T. Fox, “Time to Call a Spade a Spade. Facilitation Payments and Why Neither
Bans Nor Exemption Work,” http://thebriberyact.com/2011/02/03/time-to-call-a-spade-a-spade-facilitation-payments-why-neither-bans-nor-exemptionswork, accessed March 8, 2014.
17. This is known as the “when in Rome perspective.” T. Donaldson, “Values in Tension: Ethics Away from Home,”
Harvard Business Review, September–October 1996.
18. De George, Competing with Integrity in International Business.
19. For a discussion of the ethics of using child labor, see J. Isern, “Bittersweet Chocolate: The Legacy of Child
Labor in Cocoa Production in Cote d’Ivoire,” Journal of Applied Management and Entrepreneurship 11 (2006),
pp. 115–32.
20. S. W. Gellerman, “Why Good Managers Make Bad Ethical Choices,” in Ethics in Practice: Managing the Moral
Corporation, ed. K. R. Andrews (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 1989).
21. D. Messick and M. H. Bazerman, “Ethical Leadership and the Psychology of Decision Making,” Sloan
Management Review 37 (Winter 1996), pp. 9–20.
22. O. C. Ferrell, J. Fraedrich, and L. Ferrell, Business Ethics, 9th ed. (Mason, OH: Cengage, 2013).
23. B. Scholtens and L. Dam, “Cultural Values and International Differences in Business Ethics,” Journal of Business
Ethics, 2007.
24. M. Friedman, “The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Profits,” The New York Times Magazine,
September 13, 1970. Reprinted in T. L. Beauchamp and N. E. Bowie, Ethical Theory and Business, 7th ed.
(Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2001).
25. Friedman, “The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Profits.”
26. Friedman, Milton. ‘’The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Profits.’’ The New York Times,
September 13, 1970.
27. For example, see Donaldson, “Values in Tension: Ethics Away from Home.” See also N. Bowie, “Relativism and
the Moral Obligations of Multinational Corporations,” in T. L. Beauchamp and N. E. Bowie, Ethical Theory and
Business, 7th ed. (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2001).
28. For example, see De George, Competing with Integrity in International Business.
29. This example is often repeated in the literature on international business ethics. It was first outlined by A. Kelly in
“Case Study—Italian Style Mores,” in T. Donaldson and P. Werhane, Ethical Issues in Business (Englewood
Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1979).
30. See Beauchamp and Bowie, Ethical Theory and Business.
31. T. Donaldson, The Ethics of International Business (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989).
32. Found at www.un.org/Overview/rights.html.
33. The
Universal
Declaration
of
Human
Rights.’’
Article
1,
United
Nations,
1948.
https://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights.
34. The
Universal
Declaration
of
Human
Rights.’’
Article
23,
United
Nations,
1948.
https://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights.
35. UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 29.
36. Donaldson, The Ethics of International Business.
37. See Chapter 10 in Beauchamp and Bowie, Ethical Theory and Business.
38. J. Rawls, A Theory of Justice, rev. ed. (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1999).
39. https://aib.msu.edu/aboutleadership.asp.
40. J. Bower and J. Dial, “Jack Welch: General Electric’s Revolutionary,” Harvard Business School Case 9–394–065,
April 1994.
41. For example, see R. E. Freeman and D. Gilbert, Corporate Strategy and the Search for Ethics (Englewood Cliffs,
NJ: Prentice Hall, 1988); T. Jones, “Ethical Decision Making by Individuals in Organizations,” Academy of
Management Review 16 (1991), pp. 366–95; J. R. Rest, Moral Development: Advances in Research and Theory
(New York: Praeger, 1986).
42. Freeman and Gilbert, Corporate Strategy and the Search for Ethics; Jones, “Ethical Decision Making by
Individuals in Organizations”; Rest, Moral Development.
43. See E. Freeman, Strategic Management: A Stakeholder Approach (Boston: Pitman Press, 1984); C. W. L. Hill
and T. M. Jones, “Stakeholder-Agency Theory,” Journal of Management Studies 29 (1992), pp. 131–54; J. G.
March and H. A. Simon, Organizations (New York: Wiley, 1958).
44. Hult et al., “Stakeholder Marketing.”
45. Hult, “Market-Focused Sustainability: Market Orientation Plus!”; Hult et al., “Stakeholder Marketing.”
46. Hill and Jones, “Stakeholder-Agency Theory”; March and Simon, Organizations.
47. De George, Competing with Integrity in International Business.
48. “Our Principles,” Unilever, www.unilever.com.
49. The code can be accessed at the United Technologies website, www.utc.com.
Page 163
50. C. Grant, “Whistle Blowers: Saints of Secular Culture,” Journal of Business Ethics, September 2002,
pp. 391–400.
51. “Code of Ethics for the Academy of International Business Leadership,” Academy of International Business,
October 11, 2018, https://documents.aib.msu.edu/policies/AIB-Leadership-Code-of-Ethics-20181011.pdf.
52. S. A. Waddock and S. B. Graves, “The Corporate Social Performance–Financial Performance Link,” Strategic
Management Journal 8 (1997), pp. 303–19; I. Maignan, O. C. Ferrell, and T. Hult, “Corporate Citizenship:
Cultural Antecedents and Business Benefits,” Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science 27 (1999), pp. 455–
69.
53. Details can be found at BP’s website, www.bp.com.
54. Hult, G. Tomas M. “Market-Focused Sustainability: Market Orientation Plus!” Journal of the Academy of
Marketing Science 39, no. 1 (2011). https://ssrn.com/abstract=1671794 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1671794.
55. T. Hult, “Market-Focused Sustainability: Market Orientation Plus!”
56. M. Clarkson, “A Stakeholder Framework for Analyzing and Evaluating Corporate Social Performance,” Academy
of Management Review 20 (1995), pp. 92–117; R. Freeman, Strategic Management: A Stakeholder
Approach(Marshfield, MA: Pitman, 1984); T. Hult, J. Mena, O. Ferrell, and L. Ferrell, “Stakeholder Marketing:
A Definition and Conceptual Framework,” AMS Review 1 (2011), pp. 44–65.
part three The Global Trade and Investment
Environment
Page 164
International Trade Theory
6
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
After reading this chapter, you will be able to:
LO6-1
Understand why nations trade with each other.
LO6-2
Summarize the different theories explaining trade flows between nations.
LO6-3
Recognize why many economists believe that unrestricted free trade between nations will raise the economic welfare of
countries that participate in a free trade system.
LO6-4
Explain the arguments of those who maintain that government can play a proactive role in promoting national competitive
advantage in certain industries.
LO6-5
Understand the important implications that international trade theory holds for management practice.
Nick Haslam/Alamy Stock Photo
Page 165
A Tale of Two Nations: Ghana and South Korea
OPENING CASE
In 1970, South Korea and the West African nation of Ghana had similar living standards. South Korea’s GDP per capita was $260,
and Ghana’s was $250. Nearly 50 years later, South Korea boasts the world’s 11th-largest economy and has a GDP per capita of
$32,000, while Ghana’s GDP per capita is just $1,786. Clearly, South Korea has grown much faster than Ghana over the last half
century. According to a World Bank study, part of the explanation can be found in the different attitudes of both countries toward
international trade during the second half of the twentieth century.
Ghana gained its independence from Great Britain in 1957. The country’s first President, Kwame Nkrumah, was an early
advocate of pan-African socialism. His policies included high tariffs on many imported goods in an effort to foster self-sufficiency in
certain manufactured goods, and the adoption of policies that discouraged exports. The results of these inward-oriented policies were
a disaster for Ghana. Between 1970 and 1983, living standards in Ghana fell by 35 percent.
For example, when Ghana gained independence, it was a major producer and exporter of cocoa. A combination of favorable
climate, good soils, and ready access to world shipping routes made Ghana an ideal place to produce cocoa. Following independence,
the government created a state-controlled cocoa marketing board. The board set prices for cocoa and was the sole buyer of cocoa in
the country. The board held down the prices it paid farmers for cocoa, while selling their produce on the world market at world prices.
Thus, the board might pay farmers 25 cents a pound, and then resell the cocoa on the world market at 50 cents a pound. In effect, the
board was taxing exports by paying cocoa producers considerably less than they would get for their product on the world market. The
proceeds were then used by the government to fund a policy of nationalization and industrialization to promote self-sufficiency.
Over time, the price that farmers got paid for their cocoa increased by far less than the rate of inflation and the price of cocoa on
the world market. As returns to growing cocoa declined, farmers started to switch from producing cocoa to producing subsistence
foodstuffs that could be sold profitably within Ghana. The country’s production of cocoa and its cocoa exports plummeted. At the
same time, the government’s attempts to build an industrial base through investments in state-run enterprises failed to yield the
anticipated gains. By the 1980s, Ghana was a country in economic crisis, with falling exports and a lack of foreign currency earnings
to pay for imports.
In contrast, South Korea embraced a policy of low import barriers on manufactured goods and the creation of incentives to
promote exports. Import tariffs and quotas were progressively reduced from the late 1950s onward. In the late 1950s, import tariffs
stood at 60 percent. By the 1980s, they were reduced to nearly zero on most manufactured goods. The number of goods subjected to
restrictive import quotas was also reduced from more than 90 percent in the 1950s to zero by the early 1980s. Export incentives
included lower tax rates on export earnings and low-interest financing for investments in export-oriented industries.
Faced with competition from imports, Korean enterprises had to be efficient to survive. Given the incentives to engage in export
activity, in the 1960s Korean producers took advantage of the country’s abundant supply of low-cost labor to produce labor-intensive
manufactured goods, such as textiles and clothing for the world market. This led to a shift in Korea away from agriculture, toward
manufacturing. As labor costs rose, Korean enterprises progressively moved into more capital-intensive goods, including steel,
shipbuilding, automobiles, electronics, and telecommunications. In making these shifts, Korean firms were able to draw upon the
country’s well-educated labor force. The result was export-led growth that dramatically raised living standards for the average
Korean.
By the 1990s, Ghana recognized that its economic policies had failed. In 1992, the government started to liberalize the economy,
removing price controls, privatizing state-owned enterprises, instituting market-based reforms, and opening Ghana up to foreign
investors. Over the next decade, more than 300 state-owned enterprises were privatized, and the new, largely privately held economy
was booming, enabling Ghana to achieve one of the highest growth rates in sub-Saharan Africa. The country was helped by the
discovery of oil in 2007. Ghana is now a significant exporter of oil. In addition, Ghana remains a major producer and exporter of
cocoa, as well as gold. Although the state-run cocoa marketing board still exists, it has been reformed to ensure that farmers get a fair
share of their export earnings. Today, one of its stated functions is to promote exports and protect farmers from the adverse impact of
volatile commodity prices. In short, Ghana has shifted away from its inward-oriented trade policy.
Sources: “Poor Man’s Burden: A Survey of the Third World,” The Economist, September 23, 1980; J. S. Mah, “Export Promotion Policies, Export Composition and Economic
Development in Korea,” Law and Development Review, 2011; D. M. Quaye, “Export Promotion Programs and Export Performance,” Review of International Business and
Strategy, 2016; T. Williams, “An African Success Story: Ghana’s Cocoa Marketing System,” IDS Working Papers, January 2009.
Page 166
Introduction
The opening case illustrates the gains that can come from international trade. The economic policies of the Ghanaian
government after its independence from Great Britain discouraged trade with other nations. The result was a shift in
Ghana’s resources away from productive uses (growing cocoa) and toward unproductive uses (subsistence agriculture).
In contrast, the economic policies of the South Korean government strongly encouraged trade with other nations. The
result was a shift in South Korean resources away from uses where it had no comparative advantage (agriculture) and
toward more productive uses (manufacturing). Partly as a consequence of their divergent policies toward international
trade, South Korea has grown significantly faster than Ghana over the last half century.
To understand why different approaches to international trade yield different results, we need to take a close look at
the intellectual foundations for trade policy; at the impact of trade policy on jobs, income, and economic growth; and at
how global trade policy has evolved over the last 70 years. We should also consider the reasons for foreign direct
investment (FDI) by corporations because FDI may be a substitute for trade (i.e., exports), or it may support greater
global trade. For example, many car companies invest in production facilities in Mexico because that is a good base from
which to export finished cars to many other countries.
This is the first of four chapters that deal with the global trade and investment environment. In this chapter, we
focus on the theoretical foundations of trade policy. We will also look at what the economic evidence tells us about the
relationship between trade policies and economic growth. In Chapter 7, we chart the development of the world trading
system, discuss different aspects of trade policy, and look at how trade policy is managed by national and global
institutions. In Chapter 8, we discuss the reasons for foreign direct investment and the government policies adopted to
manage foreign investment. In Chapter 9, we look at the reasons for creating trading blocks such as the European Union
and NAFTA, and we discuss how these transnational agreements have worked out in practice. By the time you have
finished these four chapters, you should have a very solid understanding of the international trade and investment
environment, and you will understand the extremely important impact that trade and investment policies have upon the
practice of international business.
An Overview of Trade Theory
We open this chapter with a discussion of mercantilism. Propagated in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,
mercantilism advocated that countries should simultaneously encourage exports and discourage imports. Although
mercantilism is an old and largely discredited doctrine, its echoes remain in modern political debate and in the trade
policies of many countries. Indeed, some have argued that Donald Trump espouses mercantilist views. Next, we look at
Adam Smith’s theory of absolute advantage. Proposed in 1776, Smith’s theory was the first to explain why unrestricted
free trade is beneficial to a country. Free trade refers to a situation in which a government does not attempt to influence
through quotas or duties what its citizens can buy from another country or what they can produce and sell to another
country. Smith argued that the invisible hand of the market mechanism, rather than government policy, should determine
what a country imports and what it exports. His arguments imply that such a laissez-faire stance toward trade was in the
best interests of a country. Building on Smith’s work are two additional theories that we review. One is the theory of
comparati ve advantage, advance d by t he nine teent h-cent ur y E ngl i s h econom
is t Davi d Ri car do. Thi s th eory is t he
intellectual basis of the modern argument for unrestricted free trade. In the twentieth century, Ricardo’s work was refined
by two Swedish economists, Eli Heckscher and Bertil Ohlin, whose theory is known as the Heckscher–Ohlin theory.
Page 167
THE BENEFITS OF TRADE
LO6-1
Understand why nations trade with each other.
The great strength of the theories of Smith, Ricardo, and Heckscher–Ohlin is that they identify with precision the
specific benefits of international trade. Common sense suggests that some international trade is beneficial. For example,
nobody would suggest that Iceland should grow its own oranges. Iceland can benefit from trade by exchanging some of
the products that it can produce at a low cost (fish) for some products that it cannot produce at all (oranges). Thus, by
engaging in international trade, Icelanders are able to add oranges to their diet of fish.
The theories of Smith, Ricardo, and Heckscher–Ohlin go beyond this commonsense notion, however, to show why
it is beneficial for a country to engage in international trade even for products it is able to produce for itself. This is a
difficult concept for people to grasp. For example, many people in the United States believe that American consumers
should buy products made in the United States by American companies whenever possible to help save American jobs
from foreign competition. The same kind of nationalistic sentiments can be observed in many other countries.
Did You Know?
Did you know that the last time the United States imposed tariffs on imports of steel it led to job losses?
Visit your instructor’s Connect® course and click on your eBook or SmartBook® to view a short video explanation from
the author.
However, the theories of Smith, Ricardo, and Heckscher–Ohlin tell us that a country’s economy may gain if its
citizens buy certain products from other nations that could be produced at home. The gains arise because international
trade allows a country to specialize in the manufacture and export of products that can be produced most efficiently in
that country, while importing products that can be produced more efficiently in other countries.
global EDGE TRADE TUTORIALS
In this chapter, we discuss benefits and costs associated with free trade, discuss the benefits of international trade, and explain the pattern
of international trade in today’s world economy. The general idea is that international trade theories explain why it can be beneficial for a
country to engage in trade across country borders, even though countries are at different stages of development, have different product
needs, and produce different types of products. International trade theory assumes that countries—through their governments, laws, and
regulations—engage in more or less trade across borders. In reality, the vast majority of trade happens across borders by companies from
different countries. As related to this chapter, check out globalEDGE™’s “trade tutorials” section, where lots of information, data, and
tools
are
compiled
related
to
trading
internationally
(
resources/trade-tutorials). The potpourri of trade resources includes export tutorials, online course modules, a glossary, a free trade
agreement tariff tool, and much more. The glossary includes lots of terms related to trade. For example, “trade surplus” is defined as a
situation in which a country’s exports exceeds its imports (i.e., it represents a net inflow of domestic currency from foreign markets). The
opposite is called trade deficit and is considered a net outflow, but how is it really defined? The globalEDGE™ glossary can help.
Thus, it may make sense for the United States to specialize in the production and export of commercial jet aircraft
because the efficient production of commercial jet aircraft requires resources that are abundant in the United States, such
as a highly skilled labor force and cutting-edge technological know-how. On the other hand, it may make sense for the
United States to import textiles from Bangladesh because the efficient production of textiles requires a relatively cheap
labor force—and cheap labor is not abundant in the United States.
Of course, this economic argument is often difficult for segments of a country’s population to accept. With their
future threatened by imports, U.S. textile companies and their employees have tried hard to persuade the Page 168
government to limit the importation of textiles by demanding quotas and tariffs. Although such import controls
may benefit particular groups, such as textile businesses and their employees, the theories of Smith, Ricardo, and
Heckscher–Ohlin suggest that the economy as a whole is hurt by such action. One of the key insights of international
trade theory is that limits on imports are often in the interests of domestic producers but not domestic consumers.
A Rolex Group logo sits on display above a luxury wristwatch store in Vienna, Austria.
Bloomberg/Getty Images
THE PATTERN OF INTERNATIONAL TRADE
The theories of Smith, Ricardo, and Heckscher–Ohlin help explain the pattern of international trade that we observe in
the world economy. Some aspects of the pattern are easy to understand. Climate and natural resource endowments
explain why Ghana exports cocoa, Brazil exports coffee, Saudi Arabia exports oil, and China exports crawfish. However,
much of the observed pattern of international trade is more difficult to explain. For example, why does Japan export
automobiles, consumer electronics, and machine tools? Why does Switzerland export chemicals, pharmaceuticals,
watches, and jewelry? Why does Bangladesh export garments? David Ricardo’s theory of comparative advantage offers
an explanation in terms of international differences in labor productivity. The more sophisticated Heckscher–Ohlin
theory emphasizes the interplay between the proportions in which the factors of production (such as land, labor, and
capital) are available in different countries and the proportions in which they are needed for producing particular goods.
This explanation rests on the assumption that countries have varying endowments of the various factors of production.
Tests of this theory, however, suggest that it is a less powerful explanation of real-world trade patterns than once
thought.
One early response to the failure of the Heckscher–Ohlin theory to explain the observed pattern of international
trade was the product life-cycle theory. Proposed by Raymond Vernon, this theory suggests that early in their life cycle,
most new products are produced in and exported from the country in which they were developed. As a new product
becomes widely accepted internationally, however, production starts in other countries. As a result, the theory suggests,
the product may ultimately be exported back to the country of its original innovation.
In a similar vein, during the 1980s, economists such as Paul Krugman developed what has come to be known as the
new trade theory. New trade theory (for which Krugman won the Nobel Prize in economics in 2008) stresses that in
some cases, countries specialize in the production and export of particular products not because of underlying differences
in factor endowments but because in certain industries the world market can support only a limited number of firms.
(This is argued to be the case for the commercial aircraft industry.) In such industries, firms that enter the market first are
able to build a competitive advantage that is subsequently difficult to challenge. Thus, the observed pattern of trade
between nations may be due in part to the ability of firms within a given nation to capture first-mover advantages. The
United States is a major exporter of commercial jet aircraft because American firms such as Boeing were first movers in
the world market. Boeing built a competitive advantage that has subsequently been difficult for firms from countries with
equally favorable factor endowments to challenge (although Europe’s Airbus has succeeded in doing that). In a work
related to the new trade theory, Michael Porter developed a theory referred to as the theory of national competitive
advantage. This attempts to explain why particular nations achieve international success in particular industries. In
addition to factor endowments, Porter points out the importance of country factors such as domestic demand and
domestic rivalry in explaining a nation’s dominance in the production and export of particular products.
Page 169
TRADE THEORY AND GOVERNMENT POLICY
Although all these theories agree that international trade is beneficial to a country, they lack agreement in their
recommendations for government policy. Mercantilism makes a case for government involvement in promoting exports
and limiting imports. The theories of Smith, Ricardo, and Heckscher–Ohlin form part of the case for unrestricted free
trade. The argument for unrestricted free trade is that both import controls and export incentives (such as subsidies) are
self-defeating and result in wasted resources. Both the new trade theory and Porter’s theory of national competitive
advantage can be interpreted as justifying some limited government intervention to support the development of certain
export-oriented industries. We discuss the pros and cons of this argument, known as strategic trade policy, as well as the
pros and cons of the argument for unrestricted free trade, in Chapter 7.
TEST PREP
Use SmartBook to help retain what you have learned. Access your Instructor’s Connect course to check out SmartBook
or go to learnsmartadvantage.com for help.
Mercantilism
LO6-2
Summarize the different theories explaining trade flows between nations.
The first theory of international trade, mercantilism, emerged in England in the mid-sixteenth century. The principle
assertion of mercantilism was that gold and silver were the mainstays of national wealth and essential to vigorous
commerce. At that time, gold and silver were the currency of trade between countries; a country could earn gold and
silver by exporting goods. Conversely, importing goods from other countries would result in an outflow of gold and
silver from those countries. The main tenet of mercantilism was that it was in a country’s best interests to maintain a
trade surplus, to export more than it imported. By doing so, a country would accumulate gold and silver and,
consequently, increase its national wealth, prestige, and power. As the English mercantilist writer Thomas Mun put it in
1630:
The ordinary means therefore to increase our wealth and treasure is by foreign trade, wherein we must ever observe this rule: to
sell more to strangers yearly than we consume of theirs in value.1
Consistent with this belief, the mercantilist doctrine advocated government intervention to achieve a surplus in the
balance of trade. The mercantilists saw no virtue in a large volume of trade. Rather, they recommended policies to
maximize exports and minimize imports. To achieve this, imports were limited by tariffs and quotas, while exports were
subsidized.
The classical economist David Hume pointed out an inherent inconsistency in the mercantilist doctrine in 1752.
According to Hume, if England had a balance-of-trade surplus with France (it exported more than it imported), the
resulting inflow of gold and silver would swell the domestic money supply and generate inflation in England. In France,
however, the outflow of gold and silver would have the opposite effect. France’s money supply would contract, and its
prices would fall. This change in relative prices between France and England would encourage the French to buy fewer
English goods (because they were becoming more expensive) and the English to buy more French goods (because they
were becoming cheaper). The result would be a deterioration in the English balance of trade and an improvement in
France’s trade balance, until the English surplus was eliminated. Hence, according to Hume, in the long run, no country
could sustain a surplus on the balance of trade and so accumulate gold and silver as the mercantilists had envisaged.
The flaw with mercantilism was that it viewed trade as a zero-sum game. (A zero-sum game is one in which a gain
by one country results in a loss by another.) It was left to Adam Smith and David Ricardo to show the limitations of this
approach and to demonstrate that trade is a positive-sum game, or a situation in which all countries can benefit. Despite
this, the mercantilist doctrine is by no means dead. For example, the U.S. President Donald Trump appears to advocate
neo-mercantilist policies.2 Neo-mercantilists equate political power with economic power and economic power with a
balance-of-trade surplus. Critics argue that several nations have adopted a neo-mercantilist strategy that is designed to
simultaneously boost exports and limit imports.3 For example, they charge that China long pursued a neo-mercantilist
policy, deliberately keeping its currency value low against the U.S. dollar in order to sell more goods to the United States
and other developed nations, and thus amass a trade surplus and foreign exchange reserves (see the accompanying
Country Focus).
TEST PREP
Use SmartBook to help retain what you have learned. Access your Instructor’s Connect course to check out SmartBook
or go to learnsmartadvantage.com for help.
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COUNTRY FOCUS
Is China Manipulating Its Currency in Pursuit of a Neo-Mercantilist Policy?
China’s rapid rise in economic power has been built on export-led growth. For decades, the country’s exports have been growing
faster than its imports. This has led some critics to claim that China is pursuing a neo-mercantilist policy, trying to amass record
trade surpluses and foreign currency that will give it economic power over developed nations. By the end of 2014, its foreign
exchange reserves exceeded $3.8 trillion, some 60 percent of which were held in U.S.-denominated assets such as U.S. Treasury
bills. Observers worried that if China ever decided to sell its holdings of U.S. currency, that would depress the value of the dollar
against other currencies and increase the price of imports into America.
America’s trade deficit with China has been a particular cause for concern. In 2017, this reached a record $375 billion. At the
same time, China has long resisted attempts to let its currency float freely against the U.S. dollar. Many have claimed that China’s
currency has been too cheap and that this keeps the prices of China’s goods artificially low, which fuels the country’s exports.
China, the critics charge, is guilty of currency manipulation.
So is China manipulating the value of its currency to keep exports artificially cheap? The facts of the matter are less clear than
the rhetoric. China actually started to allow the value of the yuan (China’s currency) to appreciate against the dollar in July 2005,
albeit at a slow pace. In July 2005, one U.S. dollar purchased 8.11 yuan. By January 2014 one U.S. dollar purchased 6.05 yuan,
which implied a 25 percent increase in the price of Chinese exports, not what one would expect from a country that was trying to
keep the price of its exports low through currency manipulation.
Moreover, in 2015 and 2016, the rate of growth in China started to slow significantly. China’s stock market fell sharply, and
capital started to leave the country, with investors selling yuan and buying U.S. dollars. To stop the yuan from declining in value
against the U.S. dollar, China began to spend about $100 billion of its foreign exchange reserves every month to buy yuan on the
open market. Far from allowing its currency to decline against the U.S. dollar, thereby giving a boost to its exports, China was
trying to prop up its value, running down its foreign exchange reserves by $2 trillion in the process. This action seems inconsistent
with the charges that the country is pursuing a neo-mercantilist policy by artificially depressing the value of its currency. In
recognition of these developments, in late 2017 the U.S. Treasury Department declined to name China a currency manipulator and
moderated its criticism of the country’s foreign exchange policies. On the other hand, The Treasury said that it remained concerned
by the lack of progress in reducing China’s bilateral trade surplus with the United States.
Sources: S. H. Hanke, “Stop the Mercantilists,” Forbes, June 20, 2005, p. 164; G. Dyer and A. Balls, “Dollar Threat as China Signals Shift,” Financial Times, January 6,
2006; Richard Silk, “China’s Foreign Exchange Reserves Jump Again,” The Wall Street Journal, October 15, 2013; Terence Jeffrey, “U.S. Merchandise Trade Deficit with
China Hit Record in 2015,” cnsnews.com, February 9, 2016; “Trump’s Chinese Currency Manipulation,” The Wall Street Journal, December 7, 2016; Elena Holodny, “The
Treasury Department Backs Down on Some of Its Criticisms of China’s Currency Policies,” Business Insider, October 18, 2017; and Ana Swanson,“U.S.-China Trade Deficit
Hits Record, Fueling Trade Fight,” The New York Times, February 6, 2018.
Absolute Advantage
LO6-2
Summarize the different theories explaining trade flows between nations.
In his 1776 landmark book The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith attacked the mercantilist assumption that trade is a zerosum game. Smith argued that countries differ in their ability to produce goods efficiently. In his time, the English, by
virtue of their superior manufacturing processes, were the world’s most efficient textile manufacturers. Due to the
combination of favorable climate, good soils, and accumulated expertise, the French had the world’s most efficient wine
industry. The English had an absolute advantage in the production of textiles, while the French had an absolute
advantage in the production of wine. Thus, a country has an absolute advantage in the production of a product when it
is more efficient than any other country at producing it.
According to Smith, countries should specialize in the production of goods for which they have an absolute
advantage and then trade these goods for those produced by other countries. In Smith’s time, this suggested the English
should specialize in the production of textiles, while the French should specialize in the production of wine. Page 171
England could get all the wine it needed by selling its textiles to France and buying wine in exchange.
Similarly, France could get all the textiles it needed by selling wine to England and buying textiles in exchange. Smith’s
basic argument, therefore, is that a country should never produce goods at home that it can buy at a lower cost from other
countries. Smith demonstrates that by specializing in the production of goods in which each has an absolute advantage,
both countries benefit by engaging in trade.
Consider the effects of trade between two countries, Ghana and South Korea. The production of any good (output)
requires resources (inputs) such as land, labor, and capital. Assume that Ghana and South Korea both have the same
amount of resources and that these resources can be used to produce either rice or cocoa. Assume further that 200 units
of resources are available in each country. Imagine that in Ghana it takes 10 resources to produce 1 ton of cocoa and 20
resources to produce 1 ton of rice. Thus, Ghana could produce 20 tons of cocoa and no rice, 10 tons of rice and no cocoa,
or some combination of rice and cocoa between these two extremes. The different combinations that Ghana could
produce are represented by the line GG’ in Figure 6.1. This is referred to as Ghana’s production possibility frontier
(PPF). Similarly, imagine that in South Korea it takes 40 resources to produce 1 ton of cocoa and 10 resources to
produce 1 ton of rice. Thus, South Korea could produce 5 tons of cocoa and no rice, 20 tons of rice and no cocoa, or
some combination between these two extremes. The different combinations available to South Korea are represented by
the line KK’ in Figure 6.1, which is South Korea’s PPF. Clearly, Ghana has an absolute advantage in the production of
cocoa. (More resources are needed to produce a ton of cocoa in South Korea than in Ghana.) By the same token, South
Korea has an absolute advantage in the production of rice.
FIGURE 6.1 The theory of absolute advantage.
Now consider a situation in which neither country trades with any other. Each country devotes half its resources to
the production of rice and half to the production of cocoa. Each country must also consume what it produces. Ghana
would be able to produce 10 tons of cocoa and 5 tons of rice (point A in Figure 6.1), while South Korea would be able to
produce 10 tons of rice and 2.5 tons of cocoa (point B in Figure 6.1). Without trade, the combined production of both
countries would be 12.5 tons of cocoa (10 tons in Ghana plus 2.5 tons in South Korea) and 15 tons of rice (5 tons in
Ghana and 10 tons in South Korea). If each country were to specialize in producing the good for which it had an absolute
advantage and then trade with the other for the good it lacks, Ghana could produce 20 tons of cocoa, and South Korea
could produce 20 tons of rice. Thus, by specializing, the production of both goods could be increased. Production of
cocoa would increase from 12.5 tons to 20 tons, while production of rice would increase from 15 tons to 20 Page 172
tons. The increase in production that would result from specialization is therefore 7.5 tons of cocoa and 5 tons
of rice. Table 6.1 summarizes these figures.
TABLE 6.1 Absolute Advantage and the Gains from Trade
By engaging in trade and swapping 1 ton of cocoa for 1 ton of rice, producers in both countries could consume
more of both cocoa and rice. Imagine that Ghana and South Korea swap cocoa and rice on a one-to-one basis; that is, the
price of 1 ton of cocoa is equal to the price of 1 ton of rice. If Ghana decided to export 6 tons of cocoa to South Korea
and import 6 tons of rice in return, its final consumption after trade would be 14 tons of cocoa and 6 tons of rice. This is
4 tons more cocoa than it could have consumed before specialization and trade and 1 ton more rice. Similarly, South
Korea’s final consumption after trade would be 6 tons of cocoa and 14 tons of rice. This is 3.5 tons more cocoa than it
could have consumed before specialization and trade and 4 tons more rice. Thus, as a result of specialization and trade,
output of both cocoa and rice would be increased, and consumers in both nations would be able to consume more. Thus,
we can see that trade is a positive-sum game; it produces net gains for all involved.
Comparative Advantage
LO6-2
Summarize the different theories explaining trade flows between nations.
David Ricardo took Adam Smith’s theory one step further by exploring what might happen when one country has an
absolute advantage in the production of all goods.4 Smith’s theory of absolute advantage suggests that such a country
might derive no benefits from international trade. In his 1817 book Principles of Political Economy, Ricardo showed that
this was not the case. According to Ricardo’s theory of comparative advantage, it makes sense for a country to Page 173
specialize in the production of those goods that it produces most efficiently and to buy the goods that it
produces less efficiently from other countries, even if this means buying goods from other countries that it could produce
more efficiently itself.5 While this may seem counterintuitive, the logic can be explained with a simple example.
Assume that Ghana is more efficient in the production of both cocoa and rice; that is, Ghana has an absolute
advantage in the production of both products. In Ghana it takes 10 resources to produce 1 ton of cocoa and 13.33
resources to produce 1 ton of rice. Thus, given its 200 units of resources, Ghana can produce 20 tons of cocoa and no
rice, 15 tons of rice and no cocoa, or any combination in between on its PPF (the line GG’ in Figure 6.2). In South
Korea, it takes 40 resources to produce 1 ton of cocoa and 20 resources to produce 1 ton of rice. Thus, South Korea can
produce 5 tons of cocoa and no rice, 10 tons of rice and no cocoa, or any combination on its PPF (the line KK’ in Figure
6.2). Again assume that without trade, each country uses half its resources to produce rice and half to produce cocoa.
Thus, without trade, Ghana will produce 10 tons of cocoa and 7.5 tons of rice (point A in Figure 6.2), while South Korea
will produce 2.5 tons of cocoa and 5 tons of rice (point B in Figure 6.2).
FIGURE 6.2 The theory of comparative advantage.
In light of Ghana’s absolute advantage in the production of both goods, why should it trade with South Korea?
Although Ghana has an absolute advantage in the production of both cocoa and rice, it has a comparative advantage only
in the production of cocoa: Ghana can produce 4 times as much cocoa as South Korea, but only 1.5 times as much rice.
Ghana is comparatively more efficient at producing cocoa than it is at producing rice.
Without trade the combined production of cocoa will be 12.5 tons (10 tons in Ghana and 2.5 in South Korea), and
the combined production of rice will also be 12.5 tons (7.5 tons in Ghana and 5 tons in South Korea). Without trade each
country must consume what it produces. By engaging in trade, the two countries can increase their combined production
of rice and cocoa, and consumers in both nations can consume more of both goods.
THE GAINS FROM TRADE
Imagine that Ghana exploits its comparative advantage in the production of cocoa to increase its output from 10 tons to
15 tons. This uses up 150 units of resources, leaving the remaining 50 units of resources to use in producing 3.75 tons of
rice (point C in Figure 6.2). Meanwhile, South Korea specializes in the production of rice, producing 10 tons. The
combined output of both cocoa and rice has now increased. Before specialization, the combined output was 12.5 tons of
cocoa and 12.5 tons of rice. Now it is 15 tons of cocoa and 13.75 tons of rice (3.75 tons in Ghana and 10 tons in South
Korea). The source of the increase in production is summarized in Table 6.2.
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TABLE 6.2 Comparative Advantage and the Gains from Trade
Not only is output higher, but both countries also can now benefit from trade. If Ghana and South Korea swap
cocoa and rice on a one-to-one basis, with both countries choosing to exchange 4 tons of their export for 4 tons of the
import, both countries are able to consume more cocoa and rice than they could before specialization and trade (see
Table 6.2). Thus, if Ghana exchanges 4 tons of cocoa with South Korea for 4 tons of rice, it is still left with 11 tons of
cocoa, which is 1 ton more than it had before trade. The 4 tons of rice it gets from South Korea in exchange for its 4 tons
of cocoa, when added to the 3.75 tons it now produces domestically, leave it with a total of 7.75 tons of rice, which is
0.25 ton more than it had before specialization. Similarly, after swapping 4 tons of rice with Ghana, South Korea still
ends up with 6 tons of rice, which is more than it had before specialization. In addition, the 4 tons of cocoa it receives in
exchange is 1.5 tons more than it produced before trade. Thus, consumption of cocoa and rice can increase in both
countries as a result of specialization and trade.
The basic message of the theory of comparative advantage is that potential world production is greater with
unrestricted free trade than it is with restricted trade. Ricardo’s theory suggests that consumers in all nations can
consume more if there are no restrictions on trade. This occurs even in countries that lack an absolute advantage in the
production of any good. In other words, to an even greater degree than the theory of absolute advantage, the theory of
comparative advantage suggests that trade is a positive-sum game in which all countries that participate realize
economic gains. This theory provides a strong rationale for encouraging free trade. So powerful is Ricardo’s theory that
it remains a major intellectual weapon for those who argue for free trade.
Page 175
QUALIFICATIONS AND ASSUMPTIONS
LO6-3
Recognize why many economists believe that unrestricted free trade between nations will raise the economic welfare of
countries that participate in a free trade system.
The conclusion that free trade is universally beneficial is a rather bold one to draw from such a simple model. Our simple
model includes many unrealistic assumptions:
1. We have assumed a simple world in which there are only two countries and two goods. In the real world, there
are many countries and many goods.
2. We have assumed away transportation costs between countries.
3. We have assumed away differences in the prices of resources in different countries. We have said nothing about
exchange rates, simply assuming that cocoa and rice could be swapped on a one-to-one basis.
4. We have assumed that resources can move freely from the production of one good to another within a country.
In reality, this is not always the case.
5. We have assumed constant returns to scale; that is, that specialization by Ghana or South Korea has no effect on
the amount of resources required to produce one ton of cocoa or rice. In reality, both diminishing and increasing
returns to specialization exist. The amount of resources required to produce a good might decrease or increase as
a nation specializes in production of that good.
6. We have assumed that each country has a fixed stock of resources and that free trade does not change the
efficiency with which a country uses its resources. This static assumption makes no allowances for the dynamic
changes in a country’s stock of resources and in the efficiency with which the country uses its resources that
might result from free trade.
7. We have assumed away the effects of trade on income distribution within a country.
Given these assumptions, can the conclusion that free trade is mutually beneficial be extended to the real world of
many countries, many goods, positive transportation costs, volatile exchange rates, immobile domestic resources,
nonconstant returns to specialization, and dynamic changes? Although a detailed extension of the theory of comparative
advantage is beyond the scope of this book, economists have shown that the basic result derived from our simple model
can be generalized to a world composed of many countries producing many different goods.6 Despite the shortcomings
of the Ricardian model, research suggests that the basic proposition that countries will export the goods that they are
most efficient at producing is borne out by the data.7
However, once all the assumptions are dropped, the case for unrestricted free trade, while still positive, has been
argued by some economists associated with the “new trade theory” to lose some of its strength.8 We return to this issue
later in this chapter and in the next when we discuss the new trade theory. In a recent and widely discussed analysis, the
Nobel Prize–winning economist Paul Samuelson argued that contrary to the standard interpretation, in certain
circumstances the theory of comparative advantage predicts that a rich country might actually be worse off by switching
to a free trade regime with a poor nation.9 We consider Samuelson’s critique in the next section.
EXTENSIONS OF THE RICARDIAN MODEL
Let us explore the effect of relaxing three of the assumptions identified earlier in the simple comparative advantage
model. Next, we relax the assumptions that resources move freely from the production of one good to another within a
country, that there are constant returns to scale, and that trade does not change a country’s stock of resources or the
efficiency with which those resources are utilized.
Immobile Resources
In our simple comparative model of Ghana and South Korea, we assumed that producers (farmers) could easily convert
land from the production of cocoa to rice and vice versa. While this assumption may hold for some agricultural products,
resources do not always shift quite so easily from producing one good to another. A certain amount of friction is
involved. For example, embracing a free trade regime for an advanced economy such as the United States Page 176
often implies that the country will produce less of some labor-intensive goods, such as textiles, and more of
some knowledge-intensive goods, such as computer software or biotechnology products. Although the country as a
whole will gain from such a shift, textile producers will lose. A textile worker in South Carolina is probably not qualified
to write software for Microsoft. Thus, the shift to free trade may mean that she becomes unemployed or has to accept
another less attractive job, such as working at a fast-food restaurant.
Resources do not always move easily from one economic activity to another. The process creates friction and
human suffering, too. While the theory predicts that the benefits of free trade outweigh the costs by a significant margin,
this is of cold comfort to those who bear the costs. Accordingly, political opposition to the adoption of a free trade
regime typically comes from those whose jobs are most at risk. In the United States, for example, textile workers and
their unions have long opposed the move toward free trade precisely because this group has much to lose from free trade.
Governments often ease the transition toward free trade by helping retrain those who lose their jobs as a result. The pain
caused by the movement toward a free trade regime is a short-term phenomenon, while the gains from trade once the
transition has been made are both significant and enduring.
Diminishing Returns
The simple comparative advantage model developed above assumes constant returns to specialization. By constant
returns to specialization we mean the units of resources required to produce a good (cocoa or rice) are assumed to
remain constant no matter where one is on a country’s production possibility frontier (PPF). Thus, we assumed that it
always took Ghana 10 units of resources to produce 1 ton of cocoa. However, it is more realistic to assume diminishing
returns to specialization. Diminishing returns to specialization occur when more units of resources are required to
produce each additional unit. While 10 units of resources may be sufficient to increase Ghana’s output of cocoa from 12
tons to 13 tons, 11 units of resources may be needed to increase output from 13 to 14 tons, 12 units of resources to
increase output from 14 tons to 15 tons, and so on. Diminishing returns imply a convex PPF for Ghana (see Figure 6.3),
rather than the straight line depicted in Figure 6.2.
FIGURE 6.3 Ghana’s PPF under diminishing returns.
It is more realistic to assume diminishing returns for two reasons. First, not all resources are of the same quality. As
a country tries to increase its output of a certain good, it is increasingly likely to draw on more marginal resources whose
productivity is not as great as those initially employed. The result is that it requires ever more resources to Page 177
produce an equal increase in output. For example, some land is more productive than other land. As Ghana
tries to expand its output of cocoa, it might have to utilize increasingly marginal land that is less fertile than the land it
originally used. As yields per acre decline, Ghana must use more land to produce 1 ton of cocoa.
A second reason for diminishing returns is that different goods use resources in different proportions. For example,
imagine that growing cocoa uses more land and less labor than growing rice and that Ghana tries to transfer resources
from rice production to cocoa production. The rice industry will release proportionately too much labor and too little
land for efficient cocoa production. To absorb the additional resources of labor and land, the cocoa industry will have to
shift toward more labor-intensive methods of production. The effect is that the efficiency with which the cocoa industry
uses labor will decline, and returns will diminish.
Diminishing returns show that it is not feasible for a country to specialize to the degree suggested by the simple
Ricardian model outlined earlier. Diminishing returns to specialization suggest that the gains from specialization are
likely to be exhausted before specialization is complete. In reality, most countries do not specialize, but instead produce a
range of goods. However, the theory predicts that it is worthwhile to specialize until that point where the resulting gains
from trade are outweighed by diminishing returns. Thus, the basic conclusion that unrestricted free trade is beneficial still
holds, although because of diminishing returns, the gains may not be as great as suggested in the constant returns case.
Dynamic Effects and Economic Growth
LO6-3
Recognize why many economists believe that unrestricted free trade between nations will raise the economic welfare of
countries that participate in a free trade system.
The simple comparative advantage model assumed that trade does not change a country’s stock of resources or the
efficiency with which it utilizes those resources. This static assumption makes no allowances for the dynamic changes
that might result from trade. If we relax this assumption, it becomes apparent that opening an economy to trade is likely
to generate dynamic gains of two sorts.10 First, free trade might increase a country’s stock of resources as increased
supplies of labor and capital from abroad become available for use within the country. For example, this has been
occurring in eastern Europe since the early 1990s, with many western businesses investing significant capital in the
former communist countries.
Second, free trade might also increase the efficiency with which a country uses its resources. Gains in the efficiency
of resource utilization could arise from a number of factors. For example, economies of large-scale production might
become available as trade expands the size of the total market available to domestic firms. Trade might make better
technology from abroad available to domestic firms; better technology can increase labor productivity or the productivity
of land. (The so-called green revolution had this effect on agricultural outputs in developing countries.) Also, opening an
economy to foreign competition might stimulate domestic producers to look for ways to increase their efficiency. Again,
this phenomenon has arguably been occurring in the once-protected markets of eastern Europe, where many former state
monopolies have had to increase the efficiency of their operations to survive in the competitive world market.
Dynamic gains in both the stock of a country’s resources and the efficiency with which resources are utilized will
cause a country’s PPF to shift outward. This is illustrated in Figure 6.4, where the shift from PPF1 to PPF2 results from
the dynamic gains that arise from free trade. As a consequence of this outward shift, the country in Figure 6.4 can
produce more of both goods than it did before introduction of free trade. The theory suggests that opening an economy to
free trade not only results in static gains of the type discussed earlier but also results in dynamic gains that stimulate
economic growth. If this is so, then one might think that the case for free trade becomes stronger still, and in general it
does. However, as noted, one of the leading economic theorists of the twentieth century, Paul Samuelson, argued that in
some circumstances, dynamic gains can lead to an outcome that is not so beneficial.
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FIGURE 6.4 The influence of free trade on the PPF.
Trade, Jobs, and Wages: The Samuelson Critique
Paul Samuelson’s critique looks at what happens when a rich country—the United States—enters into a free trade
agreement with a poor country—China—that rapidly improves its productivity after the introduction of a free trade
regime (i.e., there is a dynamic gain in the efficiency with which resources are used in the poor country). Samuelson’s
model suggests that in such cases, the lower prices that U.S. consumers pay for goods imported from China following the
introduction of a free trade regime may not be enough to produce a net gain for the U.S. economy if the dynamic effect
of free trade is to lower real wage rates in the United States. As he stated in a New York Times interview, “Being able to
purchase groceries 20 percent cheaper at Wal-Mart (due to international trade) does not necessarily make up for the wage
losses (in America).”11
Samuelson was particularly concerned about the ability to offshore service jobs that traditionally were not
internationally mobile, such as software debugging, call-center jobs, accounting jobs, and even medical diagnosis of
MRI scans (see the accompanying Country Focus for details). Advances in communications technology since the
development of the World Wide Web in the early 1990s have made this possible, effectively expanding the labor market
for these jobs to include educated people in places such as India, the Philippines, and China. When coupled with rapid
advances in the productivity of foreign labor due to better education, the effect on middle-class wages in the United
States, according to Samuelson, may be similar to mass inward migration into the country: It will lower the market
clearing wage rate, perhaps by enough to outweigh the positive benefits of international trade.
Having said this, it should be noted that Samuelson concedes that free trade has historically benefited rich countries
(as data discussed later seem to confirm). Moreover, he notes that introducing protectionist measures (e.g., trade barriers)
to guard against the theoretical possibility that free trade may harm the United States in the future may produce a
situation that is worse than the disease they are trying to prevent. To quote Samuelson: “Free trade may turn out
pragmatically to be still best for each region in comparison to lobbyist-induced tariffs and quotas which involve both a
perversion of democracy and non-subtle deadweight distortion losses.”12
One notable recent study by MIT economist David Autor and his associates found evidence in support of
Samuelson’s thesis. The study has been widely quoted in the media and cited by politicians. Autor and his associates
looked at every county in the United States for its manufacturers’ exposure to competition from China.13 The researchers
found that regions most exposed to China tended not only to lose more manufacturing jobs, but also to see Page 179
overall employment decline. Areas with higher exposure to China also had larger increases in workers
receiving unemployment insurance, food stamps, and disability payments. The costs to the economy from the Page 180
increased government payments amounted to two-thirds of the gains from trade with China. In other words, many of the
ways trade with China has helped the United States—such as providing inexpensive goods to U.S. consumers—have
been wiped out. Even so, like Samuelson the authors of this study argued that in the long run, free trade is a good thing.
They note, however, that the rapid rise of China has resulted in some large adjustment costs that, in the short run,
significantly reduce the gains from trade.
COUNTRY FOCUS
Moving U.S. White-Collar Jobs Offshore
Economists have long argued that free trade produces gains for all countries that participate in a free trading system. As
globalization continues to sweep through the U.S. economy, many people are wondering if this is true. During the 1980s and
1990s, free trade was associated with the movement of low-skill, blue-collar manufacturing jobs out of rich countries such as the
United States and toward low-wage countries—textiles to Costa Rica, athletic shoes to the Philippines, steel to Brazil, electronic
products to Thailand, and so on. While many observers bemoaned the “hollowing out” of U.S. manufacturing, economists stated
that high-skill and high-wage white-collar jobs associated with the knowledge-based economy would stay in the United States.
Computers might be assembled in Thailand, so the argument went, but they would continue to be designed in Silicon Valley by
highly skilled U.S. engineers, and software applications would be written in the United States by programmers at Apple,
Microsoft, Adobe, Oracle, and the like.
Employees walk below the Infosys Ltd. logo at the company’s campus in Electronics City in
Bangalore, India.
Vivek Prakash/Bloomberg/Getty Images
Developments over the past several decades have people questioning this assumption. Many American companies have been
moving white-collar, knowledge-based jobs to developing nations where they can be performed for a fraction of the cost. For
example, a few years ago Bank of America cut nearly 5,000 jobs from its 25,000-strong, U.S.-based information technology
workforce. Some of these jobs were transferred to India, where work that costs $100 an hour in the United States could be done for
$20 an hour. One beneficiary of Bank of America’s downsizing is Infosys Technologies Ltd., a Bangalore, India, information
technology firm where 250 engineers now develop information technology applications for the bank. Other Infosys employees are
busy processing home loan applications for U.S. mortgage companies. Nearby in the offices of another Indian firm, Wipro Ltd.,
radiologists interpret 30 CT scans a day for Massachusetts General Hospital that are sent over the internet. At yet another
Bangalore business, engineers earn $10,000 a year designing leading-edge semiconductor chips for Texas Instruments. Nor is
India the only beneficiary of these changes.
Some architectural work also is being outsourced to lower-cost locations. Flour Corp., a Texas-based construction company,
employs engineers and drafters in the Philippines, Poland, and India to turn layouts of industrial facilities into detailed
specifications. For a Saudi Arabian chemical plant Flour designed, 200 young engineers based in the Philippines earning less than
$3,000 a year collaborated in real time over the internet with elite U.S. and British engineers who make up to $100,000 a year.
Why did Flour do this? According to the company, the answer was simple. Doing so reduces the prices of a project by 15 percent,
giving the company a cost-based competitive advantage in the global market for construction design. Also troubling for future job
growth in the United States, some high-tech start-ups are outsourcing significant work right from inception. For example, Zoho
Corporation, a California-based start-up offering online web applications for small businesses, has about 20 employees in the
United States and more than 1,000 in India!
Sources: P. Engardio, A. Bernstein, and M. Kripalani, “Is Your Job Next?” BusinessWeek, February 3, 2003, pp. 50–60; “America’s Pain, India’s Gain,” The Economist,
January 11, 2003, p. 57; M. Schroeder and T. Aeppel, “Skilled Workers Mount Opposition to Free Trade, Swaying Politicians,” The Wall Street Journal, October 10, 2003,
pp. A1, A11; D. Clark,“New U.S. Fees on Visas Irk Outsources,” The Wall Street Journal, August 16, 2010, p. 6; and J. R. Hagerty, “U.S. Loses High Tech Jobs as R&D
Shifts to Asia,” The Wall Street Journal, January 18, 2012, p. B1.
Other economists have dismissed Samuelson’s fears.14 While not questioning his analysis, they note that as a
practical matter, developing nations are unlikely to be able to upgrade the skill level of their workforce rapidly enough to
give rise to the situation in Samuelson’s model. In other words, they will quickly run into diminishing returns. However,
such rebuttals are at odds with data suggesting that Asian countries are rapidly upgrading their educational systems. For
example, about 56 percent of the world’s engineering degrees awarded in 2008 were in Asia, compared with 4 percent in
the United States!15
Evidence for the Link between Trade and Growth
Many economic studies have looked at the relationship between trade and economic growth.16 In general, these studies
suggest that as predicted by the standard theory of comparative advantage, countries that adopt a more open stance
toward international trade enjoy higher growth rates than those that close their economies to trade. Jeffrey Sachs and
Andrew Warner created a measure of how “open” to international trade an economy was and then looked at the
relationship between “openness” and economic growth for a sample of more than 100 countries from 1970 to 1990.17
Among other findings, they reported
We find a strong association between openness and growth, both within the group of developing and the group of developed
countries. Within the group of developing countries, the open economies grew at 4.49 percent per year, and the closed economies
grew at 0.69 percent per year. Within the group of developed economies, the open economies grew at 2.29 percent per year, and
the closed economies grew at 0.74 percent per year.18
A study by Wacziarg and Welch updated the Sachs and Warner data through the late 1990s. They found that over
the period 1950–1998, countries that liberalized their trade regimes experienced, on average, increases in their annual
growth rates of 1.5–2.0 percent compared to preliberalization times.19 An exhaustive survey of 61 studies published
between 1967 and 2009 concluded: “The macroeconomic evidence provides dominant support for the positive and
significant effects of trade on output and growth.”20
The message seems clear: Adopt an open economy and embrace free trade, and your nation will be rewarded with
higher economic growth rates. Higher growth will raise income levels and living standards. This last point has been
confirmed by a study that looked at the relationship between trade and growth in incomes. The study, undertaken by
Jeffrey Frankel and David Romer, found that on average, a 1 percentage point increase in the ratio of a country’s trade to
its gross domestic product increases income per person by at least 0.5 percent.21 For every 10 percent increase in the
importance of international trade in an economy, average income levels will rise by at least 5 percent. Despite the shortterm adjustment costs associated with adopting a free trade regime, which can be significant, trade would seem to
produce greater economic growth and higher living standards in the long run, just as the theory of Ricardo would lead us
to expect.22
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Heckscher–Ohlin Theory
LO6-2
Summarize the different theories explaining trade flows between nations.
Ricardo’s theory stresses that comparative advantage arises from differences in productivity. Thus, whether Ghana is
more efficient than South Korea in the production of cocoa depends on how productively it uses its resources. Ricardo
stressed labor productivity and argued that differences in labor productivity between nations underlie the Page 181
notion of comparative advantage. Swedish economists Eli Heckscher (in 1919) and Bertil Ohlin (in 1933) put
forward a different explanation of comparative advantage. They argued that comparative advantage arises from
differences in national factor endowments.23 By factor endowments, they meant the extent to which a country is
endowed with such resources as land, labor, and capital. Nations have varying factor endowments, and different factor
endowments explain differences in factor costs; specifically, the more abundant a factor, the lower its cost. The
Heckscher–Ohlin theory predicts that countries will export those goods that make intensive use of factors that are locally
abundant, while importing goods that make intensive use of factors that are locally scarce. Thus, the Heckscher–Ohlin
theory attempts to explain the pattern of international trade that we observe in the world economy. Like Ricardo’s theory,
the Heckscher–Ohlin theory argues that free trade is beneficial. Unlike Ricardo’s theory, however, the Heckscher–Ohlin
theory argues that the pattern of international trade is determined by differences in factor endowments, rather than
differences in productivity.
The Heckscher–Ohlin theory has commonsense appeal. For example, the United States has long been a substantial
exporter of agricultural goods, reflecting in part its unusual abundance of arable land. In contrast, China has excelled in
the export of goods produced in labor-intensive manufacturing industries. This reflects China’s relative abundance of
low-cost labor. The United States, which lacks abundant low-cost labor, has been a primary importer of these goods.
Note that it is relative, not absolute, endowments that are important; a country may have larger absolute amounts of land
and labor than another country but be relatively abundant in one of them.
THE LEONTIEF PARADOX
The Heckscher–Ohlin theory has been one of the most influential theoretical ideas in international economics. Most
economists prefer the Heckscher–Ohlin theory to Ricardo’s theory because it makes fewer simplifying assumptions.
Because of its influence, the theory has been subjected to many empirical tests. Beginning with a famous study published
in 1953 by Wassily Leontief (winner of the Nobel Prize in economics in 1973), many of these tests have raised questions
about the validity of the Heckscher–Ohlin theory.24 Using the Heckscher–Ohlin theory, Leontief postulated that because
the United States was relatively abundant in capital compared to other nations, the United States would be an exporter of
capital-intensive goods and an importer of labor-intensive goods. To his surprise, however, he found that U.S. exports
were less capital intensive than U.S. imports. Because this result was at variance with the predictions of the theory, it has
become known as the Leontief paradox.
No one is quite sure why we observe the Leontief paradox. One possible explanation is that the United States has a
special advantage in producing new products or goods made with innovative technologies. Such products may be less
capital intensive than products whose technology has had time to mature and become suitable for mass production. Thus,
the United States may be exporting goods that heavily use skilled labor and innovative entrepreneurship, such as
computer software, while importing heavy manufacturing products that use large amounts of capital. Some empirical
studies tend to confirm this.25 Still, tests of the Heckscher–Ohlin theory using data for a large number of countries tend
to confirm the existence of the Leontief paradox.26
This leaves economists with a difficult dilemma. They prefer the Heckscher–Ohlin theory on theoretical grounds,
but it is a relatively poor predictor of real-world international trade patterns. On the other hand, the theory they regard as
being too limited, Ricardo’s theory of comparative advantage, actually predicts trade patterns with greater accuracy. The
best solution to this dilemma may be to return to the Ricardian idea that trade patterns are largely driven by international
differences in productivity. Thus, one might argue that the United States exports commercial aircraft and imports textiles
not because its factor endowments are especially suited to aircraft manufacture and not suited to textile Page 182
manufacture, but because the United States is relatively more efficient at producing aircraft than textiles. A key
assumption in the Heckscher–Ohlin theory is that technologies are the same across countries. This may not be the case.
Differences in technology may lead to differences in productivity, which in turn, drives international trade patterns.27
Thus, Japan’s success in exporting automobiles from the 1970s onward has been based not only on the relative
abundance of capital but also on its development of innovative manufacturing technology that enabled it to achieve
higher productivity levels in automobile production than other countries that also had abundant capital. Empirical work
suggests that this theoretical explanation may be correct.28 The new research shows that once differences in technology
across countries are controlled for, countries do indeed export those goods that make intensive use of factors that are
locally abundant, while importing goods that make intensive use of factors that are locally scarce. In other words, once
the impact of differences of technology on productivity is controlled for, the Heckscher–Ohlin theory seems to gain
predictive power.
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The Product Life-Cycle Theory
LO6-2
Summarize the different theories explaining trade flows between nations.
Raymond Vernon initially proposed the product life-cycle theory in the mid-1960s.29 Vernon’s theory was based on the
observation that, for most of the twentieth century, a very large proportion of the world’s new products had been
developed by U.S. firms and sold first in the U.S. market (e.g., mass-produced automobiles, televisions, instant cameras,
photocopiers, personal computers, and semiconductor chips). To explain this, Vernon argued that the wealth and size of
the U.S. market gave U.S. firms a strong incentive to develop new consumer products. In addition, the high cost of U.S.
labor gave U.S. firms an incentive to develop cost-saving process innovations.
Just because a new product is developed by a U.S. firm and first sold in the U.S. market, it does not follow that the
product must be produced in the United States. It could be produced abroad at some low-cost location and then exported
back into the United States. However, Vernon argued that most new products were initially produced in America.
Apparently, the pioneering firms believed it was better to keep production facilities close to the market and to the firm’s
center of decision making, given the uncertainty and risks inherent in introducing new products. Also, the demand for
most new products tends to be based on nonprice factors. Consequently, firms can charge relatively high prices for new
products, which obviates the need to look for low-cost production sites in other countries.
Vernon went on to argue that early in the life cycle of a typical new product, while demand is starting to grow
rapidly in the United States, demand in other advanced countries is limited to high-income groups. The limited initial
demand in other advanced countries does not make it worthwhile for firms in those countries to start producing the new
product, but it does necessitate some exports from the United States to those countries.
Over time, demand for the new product starts to grow in other advanced countries (e.g., Great Britain, France,
Germany, and Japan). As it does, it becomes worthwhile for foreign producers to begin producing for their home
markets. In addition, U.S. firms might set up production facilities in those advanced countries where demand is growing.
Consequently, production within other advanced countries begins to limit the potential for exports from the United
States.
As the market in the United States and other advanced nations matures, the product becomes more standardized,
and price becomes the main competitive weapon. As this occurs, cost considerations start to play a greater role in the
competitive process. Producers based in advanced countries where labor costs are lower than in the United States (e.g.,
Italy and Spain) might now be able to export to the United States. If cost pressures become intense, the process might not
stop there. The cycle by which the United States lost its advantage to other advanced countries might be repeated once
more, as developing countries (e.g., Thailand) begin to acquire a production advantage over advanced Page 183
countries. Thus, the locus of global production initially switches from the United States to other advanced
nations and then from those nations to developing countries.
The consequence of these trends for the pattern of world trade is that over time, the United States switches from
being an exporter of the product to an importer of the product as production becomes concentrated in lower-cost foreign
locations.
PRODUCT LIFE-CYCLE THEORY IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
Historically, the product life-cycle theory seems to be an accurate explanation of international trade patterns. Consider
photocopiers: The product was first developed in the early 1960s by Xerox in the United States and sold initially to U.S.
users. Originally, Xerox exported photocopiers from the United States, primarily to Japan and the advanced countries of
Western Europe. As demand began to grow in those countries, Xerox entered into joint ventures to set up production in
Japan (Fuji-Xerox) and Great Britain (Rank-Xerox). In addition, once Xerox’s patents on the photocopier process
expired, other foreign competitors began to enter the market (e.g., Canon in Japan and Olivetti in Italy). As a
consequence, exports from the United States declined, and U.S. users began to buy some photocopiers from lower-cost
foreign sources, particularly Japan. More recently, Japanese companies found that manufacturing costs are too high in
their own country, so they have begun to switch production to developing countries such as Thailand. Thus, initially the
United States and now other advanced countries (e.g., Japan and Great Britain) have switched from being exporters of
photocopiers to importers. This evolution in the pattern of international trade in photocopiers is consistent with the
predictions of the product life-cycle theory that mature industries tend to go out of the United States and into low-cost
assembly locations.
However, the product life-cycle theory is not without weaknesses. Viewed from an Asian or European perspective,
Vernon’s argument that most new products are developed and introduced in the United States seems ethnocentric and
dated. Although it may be true that during U.S. dominance of the global economy (from 1945 to 1975), most new
products were introduced in the United States, there have always been important exceptions. These exceptions appear to
have become more common in recent years. Many new products are now first introduced in Japan (e.g., video-game
consoles) or South Korea (e.g., Samsung smartphones). Moreover, with the increased globalization and integration of the
world economy discussed in Chapter 1, an increasing number of new products (e.g., tablet computers, smartphones, and
digital cameras) are now introduced simultaneously in the United States and many European and Asian nations. This
may be accompanied by globally dispersed production, with particular components of a new product being produced in
those locations around the globe where the mix of factor costs and skills is most favorable (as predicted by the theory of
comparative advantage). In sum, although Vernon’s theory may be useful for explaining the pattern of international trade
during the period of American global dominance, its relevance in the modern world seems more limited.
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New Trade Theory
LO6-2
Summarize the different theories explaining trade flows between nations.
The new trade theory began to emerge in the 1970s when a number of economists pointed out that the ability of firms to
attain economies of scale might have important implications for international trade.30 Economies of scale are unit cost
reductions associated with a large scale of output. Economies of scale have a number of sources, including the ability to
spread fixed costs over a large volume and the ability of large-volume producers to utilize specialized employees and
equipment that are more productive than less specialized employees and equipment. Economies of scale are a major
source of cost reductions in many industries, from computer software to automobiles and from pharmaceuticals to
aerospace. For example, Microsoft realizes economies of scale by spreading the fixed costs of developing new versions
of its Windows operating system, which runs to about $10 billion, over the 2 billion or so personal computers on which
each new system is ultimately installed. Similarly, automobile companies realize economies of scale by Page 184
producing a high volume of automobiles from an assembly line where each employee has a specialized task.
New trade theory makes two important points: First, through its impact on economies of scale, trade can increase
the variety of goods available to consumers and decrease the average cost of those goods. Second, in those industries in
which the output required to attain economies of scale represents a significant proportion of total world demand, the
global market may be able to support only a small number of enterprises. Thus, world trade in certain products may be
dominated by countries whose firms were first movers in their production.
INCREASING PRODUCT VARIETY AND REDUCING COSTS
LO6-3
Recognize why many economists believe that unrestricted free trade between nations will raise the economic welfare of
countries that participate in a free trade system.
Imagine first a world without trade. In industries where economies of scale are important, both the variety of goods that a
country can produce and the scale of production are limited by the size of the market. If a national market is small, there
may not be enough demand to enable producers to realize economies of scale for certain products. Accordingly, those
products may not be produced, thereby limiting the variety of products available to consumers. Alternatively, they may
be produced but at such low volumes that unit costs and prices are considerably higher than they might be if economies
of scale could be realized.
Now consider what happens when nations trade with each other. Individual national markets are combined into a
larger world market. As the size of the market expands due to trade, individual firms may be able to better attain
economies of scale. The implication, according to new trade theory, is that each nation may be able to specialize in
producing a narrower range of products than it would in the absence of trade, yet by buying goods that it does not make
from other countries, each nation can simultaneously increase the variety of goods available to its consumers and lower
the costs of those goods; thus, trade offers an opportunity for mutual gain even when countries do not differ in their
resource endowments or technology.
Suppose there are two countries, each with an annual market for 1 million automobiles. By trading with each other,
these countries can create a combined market for 2 million cars. In this combined market, due to the ability to better
realize economies of scale, more varieties (models) of cars can be produced, and cars can be produced at a lower average
cost, than in either market alone. For example, demand for a sports car may be limited to 55,000 units in each national
market, while a total output of at least 100,000 per year may be required to realize significant scale economies. Similarly,
demand for a minivan may be 80,000 units in each national market, and again a total output of at least 100,000 per year
may be required to realize significant scale economies. Faced with limited domestic market demand, firms in each nation
may decide not to produce a sports car, because the costs of doing so at such low volume are too great. Although they
may produce minivans, the cost of doing so will be higher, as will prices, than if significant economies of scale had been
attained. Once the two countries decide to trade, however, a firm in one nation may specialize in producing sports cars,
while a firm in the other nation may produce minivans. The combined demand for 110,000 sports cars and 160,000
minivans allows each firm to realize scale economies. Consumers in this case benefit from having access to a product
(sports cars) that was not available before international trade and from the lower price for a product (minivans) that could
not be produced at the most efficient scale before international trade. Trade is thus mutually beneficial because it allows
the specialization of production, the realization of scale economies, the production of a greater variety of products, and
lower prices.
ECONOMIES OF SCALE, FIRST-MOVER ADVANTAGES, AND THE PATTERN
OF TRADE
A second theme in new trade theory is that the pattern of trade we observe in the world economy may be the result of
economies of scale and first-mover advantages. First-mover advantages are the economic and strategic advantages that
accrue to early entrants into an industry.31 The ability to capture scale economies ahead of later entrants, and thus benefit
from a lower cost structure, is an important first-mover advantage. New trade theory argues that for those Page 185
products where economies of scale are significant and represent a substantial proportion of world demand, the
first movers in an industry can gain a scale-based cost advantage that later entrants find almost impossible to match.
Thus, the pattern of trade that we observe for such products may reflect first-mover advantages. Countries may dominate
in the export of certain goods because economies of scale are important in their production and because firms located in
those countries were the first to capture scale economies, giving them a first-mover advantage.
For example, consider the commercial aerospace industry. In aerospace, there are substantial scale economies that
come from the ability to spread the fixed costs of developing a new jet aircraft over a large number of sales. It cost
Airbus some $25 billion to develop its superjumbo jet, the 550-seat A380, which entered service in 2007. To recoup
those costs and break even, Airbus will have to sell at least 250 A380 planes. By 2018, it had sold some 240 aircraft. If
Airbus can sell more than 350 A380 planes, it will apparently be a profitable venture. Total demand over the first 20
years of service for this class of aircraft was estimated to be between 400 and 600 units. Thus, at best, the global market
could probably profitably support only one producer of jet aircraft in the superjumbo category. It follows that the
European Union might come to dominate in the export of very large jet aircraft, primarily because a European-based
firm, Airbus, was the first to produce a superjumbo jet aircraft and realize scale economies. Other potential producers,
such as Boeing, might have been shut out of the market because they lack the scale economies that Airbus enjoys.
Because it pioneered this market category, Airbus captured a first-mover advantage based on scale economies that was
difficult for rivals to match, and that resulted in the European Union becoming the leading exporter of very large jet
aircraft. (As it turns out, however, the super-jumbo market may not be big enough to support even one producer. In early
2019, Airbus announced that it will stop producing the A380 in 2021 due to weak demand.)
IMPLICATIONS OF NEW TRADE THEORY
New trade theory has important implications. The theory suggests that nations may benefit from trade even when they do
not differ in resource endowments or technology. Trade allows a nation to specialize in the production of certain
products, attaining scale economies and lowering the costs of producing those products, while buying products that it
does not produce from other nations that specialize in the production of other products. By this mechanism, the variety of
products available to consumers in each nation is increased, while the average costs of those products should fall, as
should their price, freeing resources to produce other goods and services.
The theory also suggests that a country may predominate in the export of a good simply because it was lucky
enough to have one or more firms among the first to produce that good. Because they are able to gain economies of
scale, the first movers in an industry may get a lock on the world market that discourages subsequent entry. Firstmovers’ ability to benefit from increasing returns creates a barrier to entry. In the commercial aircraft industry, the fact
that Boeing and Airbus are already in the industry and have the benefits of economies of scale discourages new entry and
reinforces the dominance of America and Europe in the trade of midsize and large jet aircraft. This dominance is further
reinforced because global demand may not be sufficient to profitably support another producer of midsize and large jet
aircraft in the industry. So although Japanese firms might be able to compete in the market, they have decided not to
enter the industry but to ally themselves as major subcontractors with primary producers (e.g., Mitsubishi Heavy
Industries is a major subcontractor for Boeing on the 777 and 787 programs).
New trade theory is at variance with the Heckscher–Ohlin theory, which suggests a country will predominate in the
export of a product when it is particularly well endowed with those factors used intensively in its manufacture. New
trade theorists argue that the United States is a major exporter of commercial jet aircraft not because it is better Page 186
endowed with the factors of production required to manufacture aircraft, but because one of the first movers in
the industry, Boeing, was a U.S. firm. The new trade theory is not at variance with the theory of comparative advantage.
Economies of scale increase productivity. Thus, the new trade theory identifies an important source of comparative
advantage.
This theory is quite useful in explaining trade patterns. Empirical studies seem to support the predictions of the
theory that trade increases the specialization of production within an industry, increases the variety of products available
to consumers, and results in lower average prices.32 With regard to first-mover advantages and international trade, a
study by Harvard business historian Alfred Chandler suggests the existence of first-mover advantages is an important
factor in explaining the dominance of firms from certain nations in specific industries.33 The number of firms is very
limited in many global industries, including the chemical industry, the heavy construction-equipment industry, the heavy
truck industry, the tire industry, the consumer electronics industry, the jet engine industry, and the computer software
industry.
Perhaps the most contentious implication of the new trade theory is the argument that it generates for government
intervention and strategic trade policy.34 New trade theorists stress the role of luck, entrepreneurship, and innovation in
giving a firm first-mover advantages. According to this argument, the reason Boeing was the first mover in commercial
jet aircraft manufacture—rather than firms such as Great Britain’s De Havilland and Hawker Siddeley or Holland’s
Fokker, all of which could have been—was that Boeing was both lucky and innovative. One way Boeing was lucky is
that De Havilland shot itself in the foot when its Comet jet airliner, introduced two years earlier than Boeing’s first jet
airliner, the 707, was found to be full of serious technological flaws. Had De Havilland not made some serious
technological mistakes, Great Britain might have become the world’s leading exporter of commercial jet aircraft.
Boeing’s innovativeness was demonstrated by its independent development of the technological know-how required to
build a commercial jet airliner. Several new trade theorists have pointed out, however, that Boeing’s research and
development (R&D) was largely paid for by the U.S. government; the 707 was a spin-off from a government-funded
military program (the entry of Airbus into the industry was also supported by significant government subsidies). Herein
is a rationale for government intervention: By the sophisticated and judicious use of subsidies, could a government
increase the chances of its domestic firms becoming first movers in newly emerging industries, as the U.S. government
apparently did with Boeing (and the European Union did with Airbus)? If this is possible, and the new trade theory
suggests it might be, we have an economic rationale for a proactive trade policy that is at variance with the free trade
prescriptions of the trade theories we have reviewed so far. We consider the policy implications of this issue in Chapter
7.
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National Competitive Advantage: Porter’s Diamond
LO6-2
Summarize the different theories explaining trade flows between nations.
Page 187
Michael Porter, the famous Harvard strategy professor, has also written extensively on international trade.35
Porter and his team looked at 100 industries in 10 nations. Like the work of the new trade theorists, Porter’s work was
driven by a belief that existing theories of international trade told only part of the story. For Porter, the essential task was
to explain why a nation achieves international success in a particular industry. Why does Japan do so well in the
automobile industry? Why does Switzerland excel in the production and export of precision instruments and
pharmaceuticals? Why do Germany and the United States do so well in the chemical industry? These questions cannot be
answered easily by the Heckscher–Ohlin theory, and the theory of comparative advantage offers only a partial
explanation. The theory of comparative advantage would say that Switzerland excels in the production and export of
precision instruments because it uses its resources very productively in these industries. Although this may be correct,
this does not explain why Switzerland is more productive in this industry than Great Britain, Germany, or Spain. Porter
tries to solve this puzzle.
Porter theorizes that four broad attributes of a nation shape the environment in which local firms compete, and these
attributes promote or impede the creation of competitive advantage (see Figure 6.5). These attributes are
FIGURE 6.5 The determinants of national competitive advantage: Porter’s diamond.
Source: Michael E. Porter, The Competitive Advantage of Nations (New York: Free Press, 1990; republished with a new introduction, 1998), p. 72.
Factor endowments—a nation’s position in factors of production, such as skilled labor or the infrastructure
necessary to compete in a given industry.
• Demand conditions—the nature of home-country demand for the industry’s product or service.
• Related and supporting industries—the presence or absence of supplier industries and related industries that are
internationally competitive.
• Firm strategy, structure, and rivalry—the conditions governing how companies are created, organized, and
managed and the nature of domestic rivalry.
Porter speaks of these four attributes as constituting the diamond. He argues that firms are most likely to succeed in
industries or industry segments where the diamond is most favorable. He also argues that the diamond is a mutually
reinforcing system. The effect of one attribute is contingent on the state of others. For example, Porter argues favorable
demand conditions will not result in competitive advantage unless the state of rivalry is sufficient to cause firms to
respond to them.
Porter maintains that two additional variables can influence the national diamond in important ways: chance and
government. Chance events, such as major innovations, can reshape industry structure and provide the opportunity for
one nation’s firms to supplant another’s. Government, by its choice of policies, can detract from or improve national
advantage. For example, regulation can alter home demand conditions, antitrust policies can influence the intensity of
rivalry within an industry, and government investments in education can change factor endowments.
•
FACTOR ENDOWMENTS
Factor endowments lie at the center of the Heckscher–Ohlin theory. While Porter does not propose anything radically
new, he does analyze the characteristics of factors of production. He recognizes hierarchies among factors, distinguishing
between basic factors (e.g., natural resources, climate, location, and demographics) and advanced factors (e.g.,
communication infrastructure, sophisticated and skilled labor, research facilities, and technological know-how). He
argues that advanced factors are the most significant for competitive advantage. Unlike the naturally endowed basic
factors, advanced factors are a product of investment by individuals, companies, and governments. Thus, government
investments in basic and higher education, by improving the general skill and knowledge level of the population and by
stimulating advanced research at higher education institutions, can upgrade a nation’s advanced factors.
Page 188
The relationship between advanced and basic factors is complex. Basic factors can provide an initial advantage that
is subsequently reinforced and extended by investment in advanced factors. Conversely, disadvantages in basic factors
can create pressures to invest in advanced factors. An obvious example of this phenomenon is Japan, a country that lacks
arable land and mineral deposits and yet through investment has built a substantial endowment of advanced factors.
Porter notes that Japan’s large pool of engineers (reflecting a much higher number of engineering graduates per capita
than almost any other nation) has been vital to Japan’s success in many manufacturing industries.
DEMAND CONDITIONS
Porter emphasizes the role home demand plays in upgrading competitive advantage. Firms are typically most sensitive to
the needs of their closest customers. Thus, the characteristics of home demand are particularly important in shaping the
attributes of domestically made products and in creating pressures for innovation and quality. Porter argues that a
nation’s firms gain competitive advantage if their domestic consumers are sophisticated and demanding. Such consumers
pressure local firms to meet high standards of product quality and to produce innovative products. For example, Porter
notes that Japan’s sophisticated and knowledgeable buyers of cameras helped stimulate the Japanese camera industry to
improve product quality and to introduce innovative models.
RELATED AND SUPPORTING INDUSTRIES
The third broad attribute of national advantage in an industry is the presence of suppliers or related industries that are
internationally competitive. The benefits of investments in advanced factors of production by related and supporting
industries can spill over into an industry, thereby helping it achieve a strong competitive position internationally.
Swedish strength in fabricated steel products (e.g., ball bearings and cutting tools) has drawn on strengths in Sweden’s
specialty steel industry. Technological leadership in the U.S. semiconductor industry provided the basis for U.S. success
in personal computers and several other technically advanced electronic products. Similarly, Switzerland’s success in
pharmaceuticals is closely related to its previous international success in the technologically related dye industry.
One consequence of this process is that successful industries within a country tend to be grouped into clusters of
related industries. This was one of the most pervasive findings of Porter’s study. One such cluster Porter identified was
in the German textile and apparel sector, which included high-quality cotton, wool, synthetic fibers, sewing machine
needles, and a wide range of textile machinery. Such clusters are important because valuable knowledge can flow
between the firms within a geographic cluster, benefiting all within that cluster. Knowledge flows occur when employees
move between firms within a region and when national industry associations bring employees from different companies
together for regular conferences or workshops.36
FIRM STRATEGY, STRUCTURE, AND RIVALRY
The fourth broad attribute of national competitive advantage in Porter’s model is the strategy, structure, and rivalry of
firms within a nation. Porter makes two important points here. First, different nations are characterized by different
management ideologies, which either help them or do not help them build national competitive advantage. For example,
Porter noted the predominance of engineers in top management at German and Japanese firms. He attributed this to these
firms’ emphasis on improving manufacturing processes and product design. In contrast, Porter noted a predominance of
people with finance backgrounds leading many U.S. firms. He linked this to U.S. firms’ lack of attention to improving
manufacturing processes and product design. He argued that the dominance of finance led to an overemphasis on
maximizing short-term financial returns. According to Porter, one consequence of these different management ideologies
was a relative loss of U.S. competitiveness in those engineering-based industries where manufacturing Page 189
processes and product design issues are all-important (e.g., the automobile industry).
Porter’s second point is that there is a strong association between vigorous domestic rivalry and the creation and
persistence of competitive advantage in an industry. Vigorous domestic rivalry induces firms to look for ways to improve
efficiency, which makes them better international competitors. Domestic rivalry creates pressures to innovate, to improve
quality, to reduce costs, and to invest in upgrading advanced factors. All this helps create world-class competitors. Porter
cites the case of Japan:
Nowhere is the role of domestic rivalry more evident than in Japan, where it is all-out warfare in which many companies fail to
achieve profitability. With goals that stress market share, Japanese companies engage in a continuing struggle to outdo each other.
Shares fluctuate markedly. The process is prominently covered in the business press. Elaborate rankings measure which
companies are most popular with university graduates. The rate of new product and process development is breathtaking.37
EVALUATING PORTER’S THEORY
LO6-4
Explain the arguments of those who maintain that government can play a proactive role in promoting national
competitive advantage in certain industries.
Porter contends that the degree to which a nation is likely to achieve international success in a certain industry is a
function of the combined impact of factor endowments, domestic demand conditions, related and supporting industries,
and domestic rivalry. He argues that the presence of all four components is usually required for this diamond to boost
competitive performance (although there are exceptions). Porter also contends that government can influence each of the
four components of the diamond—either positively or negatively. Factor endowments can be affected by subsidies,
policies toward capital markets, policies toward education, and so on. Government can shape domestic demand through
local product standards or with regulations that mandate or influence buyer needs. Government policy can influence
supporting and related industries through regulation and influence firm rivalry through such devices as capital market
regulation, tax policy, and antitrust laws.
If Porter is correct, we would expect his model to predict the pattern of international trade that we observe in the
real world. Countries should be exporting products from those industries where all four components of the diamond are
favorable, while importing in those areas where the components are not favorable. Is he correct? We simply do not
know. Porter’s theory has not been subjected to detailed empirical testing. Much about the theory rings true, but the same
can be said for the new trade theory, the theory of comparative advantage, and the Heckscher–Ohlin theory. It may be
that each of these theories, which complement each other, explains something about the pattern of international trade.
TEST PREP
Use SmartBook to help retain what you have learned. Access your Instructor’s Connect course to check out SmartBook
or go to learnsmartadvantage.com for help.
FOCUS ON MANAGERIAL IMPLICATIONS
LOCATION, FIRST-MOVER ADVANTAGES, AND GOVERNMENT POLICY
LO6-5
Understand the important implications that international trade theory holds for management practice.
Why does all this matter for business? There are at least three main implications for international businesses of the
material discussed in this chapter: location implications, first-mover implications, and government policy implications.
Location
Underlying most of the theories we have discussed is the notion that different countries have particular advantages in
different productive activities. Thus, from a profit perspective, it makes sense for a firm to disperse its productive
activities to those countries where, according to the theory of international trade, they can be performed most efficiently.
If design can be performed most efficiently in France, that is where design facilities should be located; if the manufacture
of basic components can be performed most efficiently in Singapore, that is where they should be manufactured; and if
final assembly can be performed most efficiently in China, that is where final assembly should be performed. Page 190
The result is a global web of productive activities, with different activities being performed in different
locations around the globe depending on considerations of comparative advantage, factor endowments, and the like. If
the firm does not do this, it may find itself at a competitive disadvantage relative to firms that do.
First-Mover Advantages
According to the new trade theory, firms that establish a first-mover advantage with regard to the production of a
particular new product may subsequently dominate global trade in that product. This is particularly true in industries
where the global market can profitably support only a limited number of firms, such as the aerospace market, but early
commitments may also seem to be important in less concentrated industries. For the individual firm, the clear message is
that it pays to invest substantial financial resources in trying to build a first-mover, or early mover, advantage, even if
that means several years of losses before a new venture becomes profitable. The idea is to preempt the available demand,
gain cost advantages related to volume, build an enduring brand ahead of later competitors, and, consequently, establish
a long-term sustainable competitive advantage. Although the details of how to achieve this are beyond the scope of this
book, many publications offer strategies for exploiting first-mover advantages and for avoiding the traps associated with
pioneering a market (first-mover disadvantages).38
Government Policy
The theories of international trade also matter to international businesses because firms are major players on the
international trade scene. Business firms produce exports, and business firms import the products of other countries.
Because of their pivotal role in international trade, businesses can exert a strong influence on government trade policy,
lobbying to promote free trade or trade restrictions. The theories of international trade claim that promoting free trade is
generally in the best interests of a country, although it may not always be in the best interest of an individual firm. Many
firms recognize this and lobby for open markets.
For example, when the U.S. government announced its intention to place a tariff on Japanese imports of liquid
crystal display (LCD) screens in the 1990s, IBM and Apple Computer protested strongly. Both IBM and Apple pointed
out that (1) Japan was the lowest-cost source of LCD screens; (2) they used these screens in their own laptop computers;
and (3) the proposed tariff, by increasing the cost of LCD screens, would increase the cost of laptop computers produced
by IBM and Apple, thus making them less competitive in the world market. In other words, the tariff, designed to protect
U.S. firms, would be self-defeating. In response to these pressures, the U.S. government reversed its posture.
Unlike IBM and Apple, however, businesses do not always lobby for free trade. In the United States, for example,
restrictions on imports of steel have periodically been put into place in response to direct pressure by U.S. firms on the
government (the latest example being in March 2018 when the Trump administration placed a 25 percent tariff on
imports of foreign steel). In some cases, the government has responded to pressure from domestic companies seeking
protection by getting foreign companies to agree to “voluntary” restrictions on their imports, using the implicit threat of
more comprehensive formal trade barriers to get them to adhere to these agreements (historically, this has occurred in the
automobile industry). In other cases, the government used what are called “antidumping” actions to justify tariffs on
imports from other nations (these mechanisms will be discussed in detail in Chapter 7).
As predicted by international trade theory, many of these agreements have been self-defeating, such as the
voluntary restriction on machine tool imports agreed to in 1985. Shielded from international competition by import
barriers, the U.S. machine tool industry had no incentive to increase its efficiency. Consequently, it lost many of its
export markets to more efficient foreign competitors. Because of this misguided action, the U.S. machine tool Page 191
industry shrunk during the period when the agreement was in force. For anyone schooled in international trade
theory, this was not surprising.39
Finally, Porter’s theory of national competitive advantage also contains policy implications. Porter’s theory
suggests that it is in the best interest of business for a firm to invest in upgrading advanced factors of production (for
example, to invest in better training for its employees) and to increase its commitment to research and development. It is
also in the best interests of business to lobby the government to adopt policies that have a favorable impact on each
component of the national diamond. Thus, according to Porter, businesses should urge government to increase
investment in education, infrastructure, and basic research (because all these enhance advanced factors) and to adopt
policies that promote strong competition within domestic markets (because this makes firms stronger international
competitors, according to Porter’s findings).
Key Terms
free trade, p. 166
new trade theory, p. 168
mercantilism, p. 169
zero-sum game, p. 169
absolute advantage, p. 170
constant returns to specialization, p. 176
factor endowments, p. 181
economies of scale, p. 183
first-mover advantages, p. 184
balance-of-payments accounts, p. 195
current account, p. 196
current account deficit, p. 196
current account surplus, p. 196
capital account, p. 196
financial account, p. 196
SUMMARY
This chapter reviewed a number of theories that explain why it is beneficial for a country to engage in international
trade and explained the pattern of international trade observed in the world economy. The theories of Smith, Ricardo,
and Heckscher–Ohlin all make strong cases for unrestricted free trade. In contrast, the mercantilist doctrine and, to a
lesser extent, the new trade theory can be interpreted to support government intervention to promote exports through
subsidies and to limit imports through tariffs and quotas.
In explaining the pattern of international trade, this chapter shows that, with the exception of mercantilism,
which is silent on this issue, the different theories offer largely complementary explanations. Although no one theory
may explain the apparent pattern of international trade, taken together, the theory of comparative advantage, the
Heckscher–Ohlin theory, the product life-cycle theory, the new trade theory, and Porter’s theory of national
competitive advantage do suggest which factors are important. Comparative advantage tells us that productivity
differences are important; Heckscher–Ohlin tells us that factor endowments matter; the product life-cycle theory tells
us that where a new product is introduced is important; the new trade theory tells us that increasing returns to
specialization and first-mover advantages matter; Porter tells us that all these factors may be important insofar as they
affect the four components of the national diamond. The chapter made the following points:
1. Mercantilists argued that it was in a country’s best interests to run a balance-of-trade surplus. They viewed
trade as a zero-sum game, in which one country’s gains cause losses for other countries.
2. The theory of absolute advantage suggests that countries differ in their ability to produce goods efficiently.
The theory suggests that a country should specialize in producing goods in areas where it has an absolute
advantage and import goods in areas where other countries have absolute advantages.
3. The theory of comparative advantage suggests that it makes sense for a country to specialize in producing
those goods that it can produce most efficiently, while buying goods that it can produce relatively less
efficiently from other countries—even if that means buying goods from other countries that it could produce
more efficiently itself.
4. The theory of comparative advantage suggests that unrestricted free trade brings about increased Page 192
world production—that is, that trade is a positive-sum game.
5. The theory of comparative advantage also suggests that opening a country to free trade stimulates economic
growth, which creates dynamic gains from trade. The empirical evidence seems to be consistent with this
claim.
6. The Heckscher–Ohlin theory argues that the pattern of international trade is determined by differences in
factor endowments. It predicts that countries will export those goods that make intensive use of locally
abundant factors and will import goods that make intensive use of factors that are locally scarce.
7. The product life-cycle theory suggests that trade patterns are influenced by where a new product is introduced.
In an increasingly integrated global economy, the product life-cycle theory seems to be less predictive than it
once was.
8. New trade theory states that trade allows a nation to specialize in the production of certain goods, attaining
scale economies and lowering the costs of producing those goods, while buying goods that it does not produce
from other nations that are similarly specialized. By this mechanism, the variety of goods available to
consumers in each nation is increased, while the average costs of those goods should fall.
9. New trade theory also states that in those industries where substantial economies of scale imply that the world
market will profitably support only a few firms, countries may predominate in the export of certain products
simply because they had a firm that was a first mover in that industry.
10. Some new trade theorists have promoted the idea of strategic trade policy. The argument is that government,
by the sophisticated and judicious use of subsidies, might be able to increase the chances of domestic firms
becoming first movers in newly emerging industries.
11. Porter’s theory of national competitive advantage suggests that the pattern of trade is influenced by four
attributes of a nation: (a) factor endowments, (b) domestic demand conditions, (c) related and supporting
industries, and (d) firm strategy, structure, and rivalry.
12. Theories of international trade are important to an individual business firm primarily because they can help the
firm decide where to locate its various production activities.
13. Firms involved in international trade can and do exert a strong influence on government policy toward trade.
By lobbying government, business firms can promote free trade or trade restrictions.
Critical Thinking and Discussion Questions
1. Mercantilism is a bankrupt theory that has no place in the modern world. Discuss.
2. Is free trade fair? Discuss.
3. Unions in developed nations often oppose imports from low-wage countries and advocate trade barriers to
protect jobs from what they often characterize as “unfair” import competition. Is such competition “unfair”?
Do you think that this argument is in the best interests of (a) the unions, (b) the people they represent, and/or
(c) the country as a whole?
4. What are the potential costs of adopting a free trade regime? Do you think governments should do anything to
reduce these costs? Why?
5. Reread the Country Focus “Is China Manipulating Its Currency in Pursuit of a Neo-Mercantilist Policy?”
a. Do you think China is pursuing a currency policy that can be characterized as neo-mercantilist?
b. What should the United States, and other countries, do about this?
6. Reread the Country Focus “Moving U.S. White-Collar Jobs Offshore.”
a. Who benefits from the outsourcing of skilled white-collar jobs to developing nations? Who are the losers?
b. Will developed nations like the United States suffer from the loss of high-skilled and high-paying jobs?
7. Is there a difference between the transference of high-paying white-collar jobs, such as computer
programming and accounting, to developing nations, and low-paying blue-collar jobs? If so, what is the
difference, and should government do anything to stop the flow of white-collar jobs out of the country to
countries such as India?
8. Drawing upon the new trade theory and Porter’s theory of national competitive advantage, outline the case for
government policies that would build national competitive advantage in biotechnology. What kinds of policies
would you recommend that the government adopt? Are these policies at variance with the basic free Page 193
trade philosophy?
9. The world’s poorest countries are at a competitive disadvantage in every sector of their economies. They have
little to export; they have no capital; their land is of poor quality; they often have too many people given
available work opportunities; and they are poorly educated. Free trade cannot possibly be in the interests of
such nations. Discuss.
global EDGE research
task globaledge.msu.edu
Use the globalEDGE™ website (globaledge.msu.edu) to complete the following exercises:
1. The World Trade Organization International Trade Statistics is an annual report that provides comprehensive,
comparable, and updated statistics on trade in merchandise and commercial services. The report is an
assessment of world trade flows by country, region, and main product or service categories. Using the most
recent statistics available, identify the top 10 countries that lead in the export and import of merchandise trade,
respectively. Which countries appear in the top 10 in both exports and imports? Can you explain why these
countries appear at the top of both lists?
2. Food is an integral part of understanding different countries, cultures, and lifestyles. You run a chain of highend premium restaurants in the United States, and you are looking for unique Australian wines you can
import. However, you must first identify which Australian suppliers can provide you with premium wines.
After searching through the Australian supplier directory, identify three to four companies that can be
potential suppliers. Then, develop a list of criteria you would need to ask these companies about to select
which one to work with.
CLOSING CASE
“Trade Wars Are Good and Easy to Win”
At 3:50 a.m. on March 2, 2018, Donald Trump, the 45th President of the United States, took to his favorite medium,
Twitter, to espouse his views on an important policy issue: international trade. He tweeted “When a country (USA) is
losing many billions of dollars on trade with virtually every country it does business with, trade wars are good and easy
to win. When we are down $100 billion with a certain country and they get cute, don’t trade anymore – we win big. It’s
easy!”*
Ron Sachs, Pool/Getty Images News/Getty Images
Trump’s tweet was a response to backlash over his decision to impose a 25 percent tariff on imports of steel, and a
10 percent tariff on imports of aluminum. The Trump administration claimed these tariffs were necessary to protect two
industries that were important for national security. His critics had a different take. They argued that the tariffs would
raise input costs for consumers of steel and aluminum, which included construction companies, manufacturers of
construction equipment, appliance makers, auto manufacturers, makers of containers and packaging (e.g., beer cans), and
aerospace companies. Among those hit by higher costs due to these tariffs would be two of the U.S.’s largest exporters:
Boeing and Caterpillar Tractor. The critics also noted that there are only 140,000 people employed in the steel and
aluminum industries, whereas 6.5 million Americans are employed in industries that use steel and aluminum, where
input prices have just gone up.
*Donald John Trump, Twitter, March 2, 2018, https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump.
Trump’s actions should not have been a surprise. In contrast to all U.S. presidents since World War II, Page 194
Donald Trump has long voiced strong opposition to trade deals designed to lower tariff barriers and foster the
free flow of goods and services between the United States and its trading partners. During the presidential election
campaign, he called the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) “the worst trade deal maybe ever signed
anywhere.” Upon taking office, his administration launched a renegotiation of NAFTA, with the aim of making the
treaty more favorable to the U.S. As a candidate, he vowed to “kill” the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), a free trade deal
among 12 Pacific Rim countries, including the United States (but excluding China), negotiated by the Obama
administration. In his first week in office, he signed an executive order formally withdrawing the United States from the
TPP. He has even threatened to pull the United States out of the World Trade Organization (WTO) if the global trade
body interferes with his plans to impose tariffs.
Trump’s position seems to be based on a belief that trade is a game that the United States needs to win. He appears
to equate winning with running a trade surplus, and sees the persistent U.S. trade deficit as a sign of American weakness.
In his words, “you only have to look at our trade deficit to see that we are being taken to the cleaners by our trading
partners.”** He believes that other countries have taken advantage of the United States in trade deals, and the result has
been a sharp decline in manufacturing jobs in the United States. China and Mexico have been frequent targets of his
criticisms, and he has argued that China’s trade surplus with the United States is a result of that country’s currency
manipulation, which he believes has made Chinese exports artificially cheap. He seems to think that the U.S. can win at
the trade game by becoming a tougher negotiator and extracting favorable terms from foreign nations that want access to
the U.S. market. He has even characterized previous American trade negotiators as “stupid people,” “political hacks and
diplomats,” and “saps,” and has suggested that he should become “negotiator in chief.”
In contrast to Donald Trump’s espoused position, the pro-trade policies of the last 70 years were based upon a
substantial body of economic theory and evidence that suggests free trade has a positive impact on the economic growth
rate of all nations that participate in a free trade system. According to this work, free trade doesn’t destroy jobs; it creates
jobs and raises national income. To be sure, some sectors will lose jobs when a nation moves to a free trade regime, but
the argument is that jobs created elsewhere in the economy will more than compensate for such losses, and in aggregate,
the nation will be better off.
**Donald J. Trump and Dave Shiflett, The America We Deserve: on Free Trade, Renaissance Books, 2000.
The United States has long been the world’s largest economy, largest foreign investor, and one of the three largest
exporters (along with China and Germany). Due to exports and foreign direct investments in other countries, 43 percent
of the sales of all American firms in the S&P 500 stock market index are made outside of U.S. borders. As a result of the
U.S.’s economic power, Americans’ long adherence to free trade policies has helped to set the tone for the world trading
system. In large part, the post–World War II international trading system, with its emphasis on lowering barriers to
international trade and investment, was only possible because of vigorous American leadership. Now with the
ascendancy of Donald Trump to the presidency, that seems to be changing. Pro–free traders argue that if Trump
continues to push for more protectionist trade policies—and his rhetoric and cabinet picks suggest he will—the
unintended consequences could include retaliation from the U.S.’s trading partners, a trade war characterized by higher
tariffs, a decline in the volume of world trade, job losses in the United States, and lower economic growth around the
world. As evidence, they point to the last time such protectionist policies were implemented. That was in the early 1930s,
when a trade war between nations deepened the Great Depression.
Sources: “Donald Trump on Free Trade,” On the Issues, www.ontheissues.org/2016/Donald_Trump_Free_Trade.htm; Keith Bradsher, “Trump’s Pick on Trade Could Put China in a
Difficult Spot,” The New York Times, January 13, 2017; William Mauldin, “Trump Threatens to Pull U.S. Out of World Trade Organization,” The Wall Street Journal, July 24, 2016;
“Trump’s Antitrade Warriors,” The Wall Street Journal, January 16, 2017; “Donald Trump’s Trade Bluster,” The Economist, December 10, 2016; and Chad Brown, “Trump’s Steel and
Aluminum Tariffs Are Counterproductive,” Peterson Institute for International Economics, March 7, 2018.
Case Discussion Questions
1. What economic theory of trade do Donald Trump’s views seem most closely aligned with?
2. What are the possible benefits of Donald Trump’s position on international trade? What are the potential costs
and risks of his position?
3. Do you think Trump is correct? Are trade wars good and easy to win? What does it mean to “win” a trade war?
What does it mean to “lose”?
Design elements: Modern textured halftone: ©VIPRESIONA/Shutterstock; globalEDGE icon: ©globalEDGE; All others: ©McGraw-Hill Education
Appendix: International Trade and the Balance of Payments
Page 195
International trade involves the sale of goods and services to residents in other countries (exports) and the
purchase of goods and services from residents in other countries (imports). A country’s balance-of-payments accounts
keep track of the payments to and receipts from other countries for a particular time period. These include payments to
foreigners for imports of goods and services, and receipts from foreigners for goods and services exported to them. A
summary copy of the U.S. balance-of-payments accounts for 2018 is given in Table A.1. In this appendix, we briefly
describe the form of the balance-of-payments accounts, and we discuss whether a current account deficit, often a cause
of much concern in the popular press, is something to worry about.
Table A.1 U.S. Balance-of-Payments Accounts, 2018
Source: Bureau of Economic Analysis.
BALANCE-OF-PAYMENTS ACCOUNTS
Balance-of-payments accounts are divided into three main sections: the current account, the capital account, and the
financial account (to confuse matters, what is now called the capital account until recently was part of the Page 196
current account, and the financial account used to be called the capital account). The current account records
transactions that pertain to four categories, all of which can be seen in Table A.1. The first category, goods, refers to the
export or import of physical goods (e.g., agricultural foodstuffs, autos, computers, chemicals). The second category is the
export or import of services (e.g., intangible products such as banking and insurance services, royalty payments on
intellectual property, and earnings from foreign tourists who visit the U.S.). The third category, primary income receipts
or payments, refers to income from foreign investments or payments to foreign investors (e.g., interest and dividend
receipts or payments). The third category also includes payments that foreigners have made to U.S. residents for work
performed outside the United States and payments that U.S. entities make to foreign residents. The fourth category,
secondary income receipts or payments, refers to the transfer of a good, service, or asset to the U.S. government or U.S.
private entities, or the transfer to a foreign government or entity in the case of payments (this includes tax payments,
foreign pension payments, cash transfers, etc.).
A current account deficit occurs when a country imports more goods, services, and income than it exports. A
current account surplus occurs when a country exports more goods, services, and income than it imports. Table A.1
shows that in 2018 the United States ran a current account deficit of $488.472 billion. This is often a headline-grabbing
figure and is widely reported in the news media. The U.S. current account deficit reflects the fact that America imports
far more physical goods than it exports. (The United States typically runs a surplus on trade in services and on income
payments.)
The 2006 current account deficit of $803 billion was the largest on record and was equivalent to about 6.5 percent
of the country’s GDP. The deficit has shrunk since then. The 2018 current account deficit represented just 2.4 percent of
GDP. Many people find the fact that the United States runs a persistent deficit on its current account to be disturbing, the
common assumption being that high import of goods displaces domestic production, causes unemployment, and reduces
the growth of the U.S. economy. However, the issue is more complex than this. Fully understanding the implications of a
large and persistent deficit requires that we look at the rest of the balance-of-payments accounts.
The capital account records one-time changes in the stock of assets. As noted earlier, until recently this item was
included in the current account. The capital account includes capital transfers, such as debt forgiveness and migrants’
transfers (the goods and financial assets that accompany migrants as they enter or leave the country). In the big scheme
of things, this is a relatively small figure amounting to $9.4 billion in 2018.
The financial account (formerly the capital account) records transactions that involve the purchase or sale of
assets. Thus, when a German firm purchases stock in a U.S. company or buys a U.S. bond, the transaction enters the U.S.
balance of payments as a credit on the financial account. This is because capital is flowing into the country. When capital
flows out of the United States, it enters the financial account as a debit.
The financial account is comprised of a number of elements. The net U.S. acquisition of financial assets includes
the change in foreign assets owned by the U.S. government (e.g., U.S. official reserve assets) and the change in foreign
assets owned by private individuals and corporations (including changes in assets owned through foreign direct
investment). As can be seen from Table A.1, in 2018 there was a $301.6 billion increase in U.S. ownership of foreign
assets, which tells us that the U.S. government and U.S. private entities were purchasing more foreign assets than they
were selling. The net U.S. incurrence of liabilities refers to the change in U.S. assets owned by foreigners. In 2018,
foreigners increased their holdings of U.S. assets by $800 billion, signifying that foreigners were net acquirers of U.S.
stocks, bonds (including Treasury bills), and physical assets such as real estate.
A basic principle of balance-of-payments accounting is double-entry bookkeeping. Every international transaction
automatically enters the balance of payments twice—once as a credit and once as a debit. Imagine that you purchase a
car produced in Japan by Toyota for $20,000.
Because your purchase represents a payment to another country for goods, it will enter the balance of payments as a
debit on the current account. Toyota now has the $20,000 and must do something with it. If Toyota deposits the money at
a U.S. bank, Toyota has purchased a U.S. asset—a bank deposit worth $20,000—and the transaction will show up as a
$20,000 credit on the financial account. Or Toyota might deposit the cash in a Japanese bank in return for Japanese yen.
Now the Japanese bank must decide what to do with the $20,000. Any action that it takes will ultimately result in a credit
for the U.S. balance of payments. For example, if the bank lends the $20,000 to a Japanese firm that uses it to import
personal computers from the United States, then the $20,000 must be credited to the U.S. balance-of-payments current
account. Or the Japanese bank might use the $20,000 to purchase U.S. government bonds, in which case it will show up
as a credit on the U.S. balance-of-payments financial account.
Thus, any international transaction automatically gives rise to two offsetting entries in the balance of payments.
Because of this, the sum of the current account balance, the capital account, and the financial account balance Page 197
should always add up to zero. In practice, this does not always occur due to the existence of “statistical
discrepancies,” the source of which need not concern us here (note that in 2018, the statistical discrepancy amounted to
$40.5 billion).
DOES THE CURRENT ACCOUNT DEFICIT MATTER?
As discussed earlier, there is some concern when a country is running a deficit on the current account of its balance of
payments.40 In recent years, a number of rich countries, including most notably the United States, have run persistent
current account deficits. When a country runs a current account deficit, the money that flows to other countries can then
be used by those countries to purchase assets in the deficit country. Thus, when the United States runs a trade deficit with
China, the Chinese use the money that they receive from U.S. consumers to purchase U.S. assets such as stocks, bonds,
and the like. Put another way, a deficit on the current account is financed by selling assets to other countries—that is, by
increasing liabilities on the financial account. Thus, the persistent U.S. current account deficit is being financed by a
steady sale of U.S. assets (stocks, bonds, real estate, and whole corporations) to other countries. In short, countries that
run current account deficits become net debtors.
For example, as a result of financing its current account deficit through asset sales, the United States must deliver a
stream of interest payments to foreign bondholders, rents to foreign landowners, and dividends to foreign stockholders.
One might argue that such payments to foreigners drain resources from a country and limit the funds available for
investment within the country. Because investment within a country is necessary to stimulate economic growth, a
persistent current account deficit can choke off a country’s future economic growth. This is the basis of the argument that
persistent deficits are bad for an economy. However, things are not this simple. For one thing, in an era of global capital
markets, money is efficiently directed toward its highest value uses, and over the past quarter of a century, many of the
highest value uses of capital have been in the United States. So even though capital is flowing out of the United States in
the form of payments to foreigners, much of that capital finds its way right back into the country to fund productive
investments in the United States. In short, it is not clear that the current account deficit chokes off U.S. economic growth.
In fact, notwithstanding the 2008–2009 recession, the U.S. economy has grown substantially over the past 30 years,
despite running a persistent current account deficit and despite financing that deficit by selling U.S. assets to foreigners.
This is precisely because foreigners reinvest much of the income earned from U.S. assets and from exports to the United
States right back into the United States. This revisionist view, which has gained in popularity in recent years, suggests
that a persistent current account deficit might not be the drag on economic growth it was once thought to be.41
Having said this, there is still a nagging fear that at some point, the appetite that foreigners have for U.S. assets
might decline. If foreigners suddenly reduced their investments in the United States, what would happen? In short,
instead of reinvesting the dollars that they earn from exports and investment in the United States back into the country,
they would sell those dollars for another currency, European euros, Japanese yen, or Chinese yuan, for example, and
invest in euro-, yen-, and yuan-denominated assets instead. This would lead to a fall in the value of the dollar on foreign
exchange markets, and that in turn would increase the price of imports and lower the price of U.S. exports, making them
more competitive, which should reduce the overall level of the current account deficit. Thus, in the long run, the
persistent U.S. current account deficit could be corrected via a reduction in the value of the U.S. dollar. The concern is
that such adjustments may not be smooth. Rather than a controlled decline in the value of the dollar, the dollar might
suddenly lose a significant amount of its value in a very short time, precipitating a “dollar crisis.”42 Because the U.S.
dollar is the world’s major reserve currency and is held by many foreign governments and banks, any dollar crisis could
deliver a body blow to the world economy and at the very least trigger a global economic slowdown. That would not be a
good thing.
Endnotes
1. Spiegel, W. Henry. The Growth of Economics Thought. NC: Duke University Press, 1991.
2. Binyamin Applebaum, “On Trade, Donald Trump Breaks with 200 Years of Economic Orthodoxy,” The New
York Times, March 10, 2016.
3. M. Solis, “The Politics of Self-Restraint: FDI Subsidies and Japanese Mercantilism,” The World Economy 26
(February 2003), pp. 153–70; Kevin Hamlin, “China Is a Growing Threat to Global Competitors, Kroeber Says,”
Bloomberg News, June 28, 2016.
Page 198
4. S. Hollander, The Economics of David Ricardo (Buffalo: University of Toronto Press, 1979).
5. D. Ricardo, The Principles of Political Economy and Taxation (Homewood, IL: Irwin, 1967, first published in
1817).
6. For example, R. Dornbusch, S. Fischer, and P. Samuelson, “Comparative Advantage: Trade and Payments in a
Ricardian Model with a Continuum of Goods,” American Economic Review 67 (December 1977), pp. 823–39.
7. B. Balassa, “An Empirical Demonstration of Classic Comparative Cost Theory,” Review of Economics and
Statistics, 1963, pp. 231–38.
8. See P. R. Krugman, “Is Free Trade Passé?” Journal of Economic Perspectives 1 (Fall 1987), pp. 131–44.
9. P. Samuelson, “Where Ricardo and Mill Rebut and Confirm Arguments of Mainstream Economists Supporting
Globalization,” Journal of Economic Perspectives 18, no. 3 (Summer 2004), pp. 135–46.
10. P. Samuelson, “The Gains from International Trade Once Again,” Economic Journal 72 (1962), pp. 820–29.
11. Lohr, Steve. “An Elder Challenges Outsourcing’s Orthodoxy.” The New York Times, September 9, 2004.
https://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/09/business/worldbusiness/an-elder-challenges-outsourcingsorthodoxy.html.
12. Samuelson, A. Paul. “Where Ricardo and Mill Rebut and Confirm Arguments of Mainstream Economists
Supporting Globalization.” Journal of Economic Perspective 18, no. 3 (Summer 2004): 143.
13. D. H. Autor, D. Dorn, and Gordon H. Hanson, “The China Syndrome: Local Labor Market Effects of Import
Competition in the United States,” American Economic Review 103, no. 6 (October 2013).
14. See A. Dixit and G. Grossman, “Samuelson Says Nothing about Trade Policy,” Princeton University, 2004,
accessed
from
http://depts.washington.edu/teclass/ThinkEcon/readings/Kalles/Dixit%20and%20Grossman%20on%20Samuelson.pdf.
15. J. R. Hagerty, “U.S. Loses High Tech Jobs as R&D Shifts to Asia,” The Wall Street Journal, January 18, 2012, p.
B1.
16. For example, J. D. Sachs and A. Warner, “Economic Reform and the Process of Global Integration,” Brookings
Papers on Economic Activity, 1995, pp. 1–96; J. A. Frankel and D. Romer, “Does Trade Cause Growth?”
American Economic Review 89, no. 3 (June 1999), pp. 379–99; D. Dollar and A. Kraay, “Trade, Growth and
Poverty,” working paper, Development Research Group, World Bank, June 2001. Also, for an accessible
discussion of the relationship between free trade and economic growth, see T. Taylor, “The Truth about
Globalization,” Public Interest, Spring 2002, pp. 24–44; D. Acemoglu, S. Johnson, and J. Robinson, “The Rise of
Europe: At l antic Trade, I nsti t ut i onal Change and Eco nomi c Growth, ”
Amer i can Economic Revi ew
95, no. 3
(2005), pp. 547–79; T. Singh, “Does International Trade Cause Economic Growth?” The World Economy 33, no.
11 (2010), pp. 1517–64.
17. Sachs and Warner, “Economic Reform and the Process of Global Integration.”
18. Warner, Andrew, and Jeffrey D. Sachs. “Economics Reform and the Process of Global Integration.” Brookings
Papers
on
Economic
Activity,
1995.
https://www.brookings.edu/wpcontent/uploads/1995/01/1995a_bpea_sachs_warner_aslund_fischer.pdf.
19. R. Wacziarg and K. H. Welch, “Trade Liberalization and Growth: New Evidence,” World Bank Economic Review
22, no. 2 (June 2008).
20. T. Singh, “Does International Trade Cause Economic Growth?” The World Economy 33, no. 11 (November
2010), pp. 1517–64.
21. J. A. Frankel and D. H. Romer, “Does Trade Cause Growth?” American Economic Review 89, no. 3 (June 1999),
pp. 370–99.
22. A recent skeptical review of the empirical work on the relationship between trade and growth questions these
results. See F. Rodriguez and D. Rodrik, “Trade Policy and Economic Growth: A Skeptic’s Guide to the CrossNational Evidence,” National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series, working paper no. 7081
(April 1999). Even these authors, however, cannot find any evidence that trade hurts economic growth or income
levels.
23. B. Ohlin, Interregional and International Trade (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1933). For a
summary, see R. W. Jones and J. P. Neary, “The Positive Theory of International Trade,” in Handbook of
International Economics, R. W. Jones and P. B. Kenen, eds. (Amsterdam: North Holland, 1984).
24. W. Leontief, “Domestic Production and Foreign Trade: The American Capital Position Re-examined,”
Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 97 (1953), pp. 331–49.
25. R. M. Stern and K. Maskus, “Determinants of the Structure of U.S. Foreign Trade,” Journal of International
Economics 11 (1981), pp. 207–44.
26. See H. P. Bowen, E. E. Leamer, and L. Sveikayskas, “Multicountry, Multifactor Tests of the Factor Abundance
Theory,” American Economic Review 77 (1987), pp. 791–809.
27. D. Trefler, “The Case of the Missing Trade and Other Mysteries,” American Economic Review 85 (December
1995), pp. 1029–46.
28. D. R. Davis and D. E. Weinstein, “An Account of Global Factor Trade,” American Economic Review 91, no. 5
(December 2001), pp. 1423–52.
29. R. Vernon, “International Investments and International Trade in the Product Life Cycle,” Quarterly Journal of
Economics, May 1966, pp. 190–207; R. Vernon and L. T. Wells, The Economic Environment of I nte rna t i onal
Business, 4th ed. (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1986).
30. For a good summary of this literature, see E. Helpman and P. Krugman, Market Structure and Foreign Trade:
Increasing Returns, Imperfect Competition, and the International Economy (Boston: MIT Press, 1985). Also see
P. Krugman, “Does the New Trade Theory Require a New Trade Policy?” World Economy 15, no. 4 (1992), pp.
423–41.
31. M. B. Lieberman and D. B. Montgomery, “First-Mover Advantages,” Strategic Management Journal 9 (Summer
1988), pp. 41–58; W. T. Robinson and Sungwook Min, “Is the First to Market the First to Fail?” Journal of
Marketing Research 29 (2002), pp. 120–28.
32. J. R. Tybout, “Plant and Firm Level Evidence on New Trade Theories,” National Bureau of Economic Research
Working Paper Series, working paper no. 8418 (August 2001), www.nber.org; S. Deraniyagala and B. Fine,
“New Trade Theory versus Old Trade Policy: A Continuing Enigma,” Cambridge Journal of Economics 25
(November 2001), pp. 809–25.
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33. A. D. Chandler, Scale and Scope (New York: Free Press, 1990).
34. Krugman, “Does the New Trade Theory Require a New Trade Policy?”
35. M. E. Porter, The Competitive Advantage of Nations (New York: Free Press, 1990). For a good review of this
book, see R. M. Grant, “Porter’s Competitive Advantage of Nations: An Assessment,” Strategic Management
Journal 12 (1991), pp. 535–48.
36. B. Kogut, ed., Country Competitiveness: Technology and the Organizing of Work (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1993).
37. Agrawal, Raj. International Trade. Excel Books India, 2001.
38. Lieberman and Montgomery, “First-Mover Advantages.” See also Robinson and Min, “Is the First to Market the
First to Fail?”; W. Boulding and M. Christen, “First-Mover Disadvantage,” Harvard Business Review, October
2001, pp. 20–21; R. Agarwal and M. Gort, “First-Mover Advantage and the Speed of Competitive Entry,”
Journal of Law and Economics 44 (2001), pp. 131–59.
39. C. A. Hamilton, “Building Better Machine Tools,” Journal of Commerce, October 30, 1991, p. 8; “Manufacturing
Trouble,” The Economist, October 12, 1991, p. 71.
40. P. Krugman, The Age of Diminished Expectations (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1990); J. Bernstein and Dean
Baker, “Why Trade Deficits Matter,” The Atlantic, December 8, 2016.
41. D. Griswold, “Are Trade Deficits a Drag on U.S. Economic Growth?” Free Trade Bulletin, March 12, 2007; O.
Blanchard, “Current Account Deficits in Rich Countries,” National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper
Series, working paper no. 12925, February 2007.
42. S. Edwards, “The U.S. Current Account Deficit: Gradual Correction or Abrupt Adjustment?” National Bureau of
Economic Research Working Paper Series, working paper no. 12154, April 2006.
part three The Global Trade and Investment
Environment
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Government Policy and International Trade
7
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
After reading this chapter, you will be able to:
LO7-1
Identify the policy instruments used by governments to influence international trade flows.
LO7-2
Understand why governments sometimes intervene in international trade.
LO7-3
Summarize and explain the arguments against strategic trade policy.
LO7-4
Describe the development of the world trading system and the current trade issue.
LO7-5
Explain the implications for managers of developments in the world trading system.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images News/Getty Images
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American Steel Tariffs
OPENING CASE
In March 2018, President Trump imposed a 25 percent tariff on imports of foreign steel into the United States (and a 10 percent tariff
on aluminum imports). In justifying the steel tariff, Trump argued that a strong domestic steel industry was necessary for the national
security of the United States. In 2017, some 36 million tons of steel were imported into the U.S., while 81.6 million tons were
produced domestically. Import penetration into the U.S. had increased from about 23 percent of total steel consumption in 2007 to 31
percent in 2017. The U.S. exports about 2 million tons of steel per year. There were roughly 140,000 people employed in the U.S.
steel industry in 2018, and around 6.5 million employed in industries that consumed steel, including construction, machinery, and
automobiles.
This was not the first time the U.S. steel industry had been the beneficiary of import tariffs. The industry has a long history of
tariff protection. Some critics complain that this is linked to the importance of steel producing states such as Indiana, Pennsylvania,
and Ohio in U.S. Presidential elections. In 2002, the Bush administration placed tariffs ranging from 8 percent to 30 percent on
imports of foreign steel. The U.S. exempted its NAFTA partners Canada and Mexico from these tariffs. The Bush tariffs were lifted
nine months later after significant opposition from businesses in steel consuming industries, who claimed that higher steel prices were
resulting in significant job losses. In 2016, the Obama administration imposed punitive tariffs as high as 500 percent on imports of
some steel products from China, arguing that Chinese producers were dumping excess steel production in the United States at below
the costs of production. Due to the Obama tariffs (which remain in place), by the time of Trump’s announcement, China accounted
for only 2 percent of U.S. steel imports. The largest steel exporters to the U.S. in 2017 were Canada, South Korea, Mexico, and
Brazil.
The Trump administration argued that this round of steel tariffs would help revitalize the struggling U.S. steel industry. Critics
countered that the result would be higher prices for steel consumers and job losses in those industries. The early evidence is mixed.
Domestic steel production in the U.S. increased by around 7 percent in the first year after the tariffs were imposed, while imports fell
around 10 percent. The prices of U.S. steel products increased by around 20 percent in 2018 and profits for U.S. steel producers
improved. Flush with cash, there have been several announcements regarding planned expansions in capacity from domestic steel
producers, including Nucor, Steel Dynamics Inc., and U.S. Steel Corp. These plans would add about 8.3 million tons of production to
the U.S. steel industry, increasing its capacity by 14 percent.
On the other hand, some steel consumers have pushed back, pointing out that higher steel prices are hurting their businesses.
General Motors, a major steel consumer, announced in November 2018 that Trump’s tariffs on steel (and aluminum) would cost it
over $1 billion a year. The company announced plans to shut several plants and eliminate 15,000 jobs (although higher steel prices
were not the only factor here). Similarly, the iconic American motorcycle manufacturer Harley Davidson announced that its 2018
profits were wiped out by higher metal costs due to Trump’s tariffs. The company has announced plans to move some production
overseas as a way of avoiding the high costs of metals in the United States and supporting foreign sales. Only time will tell if the
announcements from GM and Harley Davidson are indicative of the impact that higher steel prices will have on many American
businesses. If these are the first salvo, Trump’s steel tariffs may ultimately be judged to be no more successful than those imposed by
George Bush in 2002. Analysis of the Bush tariffs suggested that the gains to steel producers were outweighed by the losses to U.S.
steel consumers.
Sources: Bob Tita and Alistair MacDonald, “Foreign Steel Keeps Flowing into the U.S. despite Tariffs,” The Wall Street Journal, December 5, 2018; International Trade
Administration, Steel Imports Report: United States, June 2018; Alistair MacDonald, “Tariffs Roil Global Steel Trade, Creating Winners and Losers,” The Wall Street Journal,
November 29, 2018; Doug Mataconis, “After Trump’s Tariffs, American Steel Industry Faces Downturn,” Outside the Beltway, January 19, 2019; Ruth Simon, “A Tale of Two
Steel Firms and Their Diverging Paths Under Trump’s Tariffs,” The Wall Street Journal, February 10, 2019; “Tariffs on Steel and Aluminum are Creating Some Winners,” The
Economist, August 9, 2018; G. C. Hufbauer and B. Goodrich, “Steel Policy: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly,” Peterson Institute: International Economics Policy Briefs, January
2003.
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Introduction
The review of the classical trade theories of Smith, Ricardo, and Heckscher–Ohlin in Chapter 6 showed that in a world
without trade barriers, trade patterns are determined by the relative productivity of different factors of production in
different countries. Countries will specialize in products they can make most efficiently, while importing products they
can produce less efficiently. Chapter 6 also laid out the intellectual case for free trade. Remember, free trade refers to a
situation in which a government does not attempt to restrict what its citizens can buy from or sell to another country. As
we saw in Chapter 6, the theories of Smith, Ricardo, and Heckscher–Ohlin predict that the consequences of free trade
include both static economic gains (because free trade supports a higher level of domestic consumption and more
efficient utilization of resources) and dynamic economic gains (because free trade stimulates economic growth and the
creation of wealth).
This chapter looks at the political reality of international trade. Although many nations are nominally committed to
free trade, they tend to intervene in international trade to protect the interests of politically important groups or promote
the interests of key domestic producers. For example, there is a long history of the U.S. government intervening in the
steel industry, imposing import tariffs to protect domestic producers from market share losses due to the importation of
less expensive foreign steel. The last three U.S. presidents, Bush, Obama, and Trump, have all authorized tariffs on
foreign steel imports. Motivations for doing so include national security concerns, a belief that certain foreign steel
producers were dumping production of steel on the U.S. market at below the costs of production, and a desire to boost
U.S. steel production and steel-making jobs. In every case, however, these potential benefits must be weighed against the
impact of higher steel prices for U.S. consumers of steel, which include firms in the automobile, construction, machinery,
and appliance industries. By raising input costs, steel tariffs may have reduced profitability, led to job losses, and
reduced competitiveness among firms that consume steel products.
This chapter starts by describing the range of policy instruments that governments use to intervene in international
trade. A detailed review of governments’ various political and economic motives for intervention follows. In the third
section of this chapter, we consider how the case for free trade stands up in view of the various justifications given for
government intervention in international trade. Then we look at the emergence of the modern international trading
system, which is based on the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and its successor, the World Trade
Organization (WTO). The GATT and WTO are the creations of a series of multinational treaties. The final section of this
chapter discusses the implications of this material for management practice.
Instruments of Trade Policy
LO7-1
Identify the policy instruments used by governments to influence international trade flows.
Trade policy uses seven main instruments: tariffs, subsidies, import quotas, voluntary export restraints, local content
requirements, administrative policies, and antidumping duties. Tariffs are the oldest and simplest instrument of trade
policy. As we shall see later in this chapter, they are also the instrument that the GATT and WTO have been most
successful in limiting. A fall in tariff barriers in recent decades has been accompanied by a rise in nontariff barriers, such
as subsidies, quotas, voluntary export restraints, and antidumping duties.
TARIFFS
A tariff is a tax levied on imports (or exports). Tariffs fall into two categories. Specific tariffs are levied as a fixed
charge for each unit of a good imported (e.g., $3 per barrel of oil). Ad valorem tariffs are levied as a proportion of the
value of the imported good. In most cases, tariffs are placed on imports to protect domestic producers from foreign
competition by raising the price of imported goods. However, tariffs also produce revenue for the government. Until the
income tax was introduced, for example, the U.S. government received most of its revenues from tariffs.
Did You Know?
Did you know that one of the first arguments for protectionist trade policies was proposed by Alexander Hamilton in
1792?
Visit your instructor’s Connect® course and click on your eBook or SmartBook® to view a short video explanation from
the author.
Page 203
Import tariffs are paid by the importer (and export tariffs by the exporter). Thus, the 25 percent ad
valorem tariff placed on imports of foreign steel by President Trump in 2017 are paid for not by foreign steel producers,
but by the American importers. These import tariffs are in effect a tax on American consumers. The important thing to
understand about an import tariff is who suffers and who gains. The government gains because the tariff increases
government revenues. Domestic producers gain because the tariff affords them some protection against foreign
competitors by increasing the cost of imported foreign goods. Consumers lose because they must pay more for certain
imports. For example, as noted in the opening case, in 2002 the U.S. government placed an ad valorem tariff of 8 to 30
percent on imports of foreign steel. The idea was to protect domestic steel producers from cheap imports of foreign steel.
In this case, however, the effect was to raise the price of steel products in the United States between 30 and 50 percent. A
number of U.S. steel consumers, ranging from appliance makers to automobile companies, objected that the steel tariffs
would raise their costs of production and make it more difficult for them to compete in the global marketplace. Whether
the gains to the government and domestic producers exceed the loss to consumers depends on various factors, such as the
amount of the tariff, the importance of the imported good to domestic consumers, the number of jobs saved in the
protected industry, and so on. In the steel case, many argued that the losses to steel consumers apparently outweighed the
gains to steel producers. In November 2003, the World Trade Organization declared that the tariffs represented a
violation of the WTO treaty, and the United States removed them in December of that year. Interestingly, this ruling did
not stop Donald Trump from imposing a 25 percent tariff on imports of foreign steel in March 2018. If the tariffs are
challenged, as seems likely, the WTO will in all probability reach a similar conclusion.
In general, two conclusions can be derived from economic analysis of the effect of import tariffs.1 First, tariffs are
generally pro-producer and anticonsumer. While they protect producers from foreign competitors, this restriction of
supply also raises domestic prices. For example, a study by Japanese economists calculated that tariffs on imports of
foodstuffs, cosmetics, and chemicals into Japan cost the average Japanese consumer about $890 per year in the form of
higher prices. Almost all studies find that import tariffs impose significant costs on domestic consumers in the form of
higher prices. Second, import tariffs reduce the overall efficiency of the world economy. They reduce efficiency because
a protective tariff encourages domestic firms to produce products at home that could be produced more efficiently
abroad. The consequence is an inefficient utilization of resources.2
Sometimes tariffs are levied on exports of a product from a country. Export tariffs are less common than import
tariffs. In general, export tariffs have two objectives: first, to raise revenue for the government, and second, to reduce
exports from a sector, often for political reasons. For example, in 2004 China imposed a tariff on textile exports. The
primary objective was to moderate the growth in exports of textiles from China, thereby alleviating tensions with other
trading partners. China also had tariffs on steel exports but removed many of those in late 2015.
SUBSIDIES
A subsidy is a government payment to a domestic producer. Subsidies take many forms, including cash grants, lowinterest loans, tax breaks, and government equity participation in domestic firms. By lowering production costs,
subsidies help domestic producers in two ways: (1) competing against foreign imports and (2) gaining export markets.
Agriculture tends to be one of the largest beneficiaries of subsidies in most countries. The European Union has been
paying out about €44 billion annually ($55 billion) in farm subsidies. The farm bill that passed the U.S. Congress in 2018
contained subsidies to producers of roughly $25 billion a year for the next 10 years. The Japanese also have a long
history of supporting inefficient domestic producers with farm subsidies. According to the World Trade Organization, in
mid-2000 countries spent some $300 billion on subsidies, $250 billion of which was spent by 21 developed nations.3 In
response to a severe sales slump following the global financial crisis, between mid-2008 and mid-2009, some Page 204
developed nations gave $45 billion in subsidies to their automobile makers. While the purpose of the subsidies
was to help them survive a very difficult economic climate, one of the consequences was to give subsidized companies
an unfair competitive advantage in the global auto industry. Somewhat ironically, given the government bailouts of U.S.
auto companies during the global financial crisis, in 2012 the Obama administration filed a complaint with the WTO
arguing that the Chinese were illegally subsidizing exports of autos and auto parts. Details are given in the accompanying
Country Focus feature.
COUNTRY FOCUS
Are the Chinese Illegally Subsidizing Auto Exports?
In late 2012, during that year’s presidential election campaign, the Obama administration filed a complaint against China with the
World Trade Organization. The complaint claimed that China was providing export subsidies to its auto and auto parts industries.
The subsidies included cash grants for exporting, grants for R&D, subsidies to pay interest on loans, and preferential tax treatment.
The United States estimated the value of the subsidies to be at least $1 billion between 2009 and 2011. The complaint also
pointed out that in the years 2002 through 2011, the value of China’s exports of autos and auto parts increased more than ninefold
from $7.4 billion to $69.1 billion. The United States was China’s largest market for exports of auto parts during this period. The
United States asserted that, to some degree, this growth may have been helped by subsidies. The complaint went on to claim that
these subsidies hurt producers of automobiles and auto parts in the United States. This is a large industry in the United States,
employing more than 800,000 people and generating some $350 billion in sales.
While some in the labor movement applauded the move, the response from U.S. auto companies and auto parts producers was
muted. One reason for this is that many U.S. producers do business in China and, in all probability, want to avoid retaliation from
the Chinese government. GM, for example, has a joint venture and two wholly owned subsidiaries in China and is doing very well
there. In addition, some U.S. producers benefit by purchasing cheap Chinese auto parts, so any retaliatory tariffs imposed on those
imports might actually raise their costs.
More cynical observers saw the move as nothing more than political theater. The week before the complaint was filed, the
Republican presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, had accused the Obama administration of “failing American workers” by not
labeling China a currency manipulator. So perhaps the complaint was in part simply another move on the presidential campaign
chessboard.
In February 2014, the United States expanded its complaint with the WTO against China, arguing that the country had an
illegal export subsidy program that includes not only auto parts, but also textiles, apparel and footwear, advanced materials and
metals, speciality chemicals, medical products and agriculture. In 2016, after pressure from the WTO and U.S., China agreed to
eliminate a wide range of subsidies for its exporters. Michael Froman, the U.S. Trade Representative, announced the deal, calling
it “a win for Americans employed in seven diverse sectors that run the gamut from agriculture to textiles.”
Sources: James Healey, “U.S. Alleges Unfair China Auto Subsidies in WTO Action,” USA Today, September 17, 2012; M. A. Memoli, “Obama to Tell WTO That China
Illegally Subsidizes Auto Imports,” Los Angeles Times, September 17, 2012; Vicki Needham, “US Launches Trade Case against China’s Export Subsidy Program,” The Hill,
February 11, 2014; and David J. Lynch, “China Eliminates Subsidies for Its Exporters,” Financial Times, April 14, 2016.
The main gains from subsidies accrue to domestic producers, whose international competitiveness is increased as a
result. Advocates of strategic trade policy (which, as you will recall from Chapter 6, is an outgrowth of the new trade
theory) favor subsidies to help domestic firms achieve a dominant position in those industries in which economies of
scale are important and the world market is not large enough to profitably support more than a few firms (aerospace and
semiconductors are two such industries). According to this argument, subsidies can help a firm achieve a first-mover
advantage in an emerging industry. If this is achieved, further gains to the domestic economy arise from the employment
and tax revenues that a major global company can generate. However, government subsidies must be paid for, typically
by taxing individuals and corporations.
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Whether subsidies generate national benefits that exceed their national costs is debatable. In practice,
many subsidies are not that successful at increasing the international competitiveness of domestic producers. Rather, they
tend to protect the inefficient and promote excess production. One study estimated that if advanced countries abandoned
subsidies to farmers, global trade in agricultural products would be 50 percent higher and the world as a whole would be
better off by $160 billion.4 Another study estimated that removing all barriers to trade in agriculture (both subsidies and
tariffs) would raise world income by $182 billion.5 This increase in wealth arises from the more efficient use of
agricultural land.
IMPORT QUOTAS AND VOLUNTARY EXPORT RESTRAINTS
An import quota is a direct restriction on the quantity of some good that may be imported into a country. The restriction
is usually enforced by issuing import licenses to a group of individuals or firms. For example, the United States has a
quota on cheese imports. The only firms allowed to import cheese are certain trading companies, each of which is
allocated the right to import a maximum number of pounds of cheese each year. In some cases, the right to sell is given
directly to the governments of exporting countries.
A common hybrid of a quota and a tariff is known as a tariff rate quota. Under a tariff rate quota, a lower tariff
rate is applied to imports within the quota than those over the quota. For example, as illustrated in Figure 7.1, an ad
valorem tariff rate of 10 percent might be levied on 1 million tons of rice imports into South Korea, after which an outof-quota rate of 80 percent might be applied. Thus, South Korea might import 2 million tons of rice, 1 million at a 10
percent tariff rate and another 1 million at an 80 percent tariff. Tariff rate quotas are common in agriculture, where their
goal is to limit imports over quota.
FIGURE 7.1 Hypothetical tariff rate quota.
A variant on the import quota is the voluntary export restraint. A voluntary export restraint (VER) is a quota on
trade imposed by the exporting country, typically at the request of the importing country’s government. For example, in
2012 Brazil imposed what amounts to voluntary export restraints on shipments of vehicles from Mexico to Brazil. The
two countries have a decade-old free trade agreement, but a surge in vehicles heading to Brazil from Mexico prompted
Brazil to raise its protectionist walls. Mexico agreed to quotas on Brazil-bound vehicle exports for three years.6 Foreign
producers agree to VERs because they fear more damaging punitive tariffs or import quotas might follow if they do not.
Agreeing to a VER is seen as a way to make the best of a bad situation by appeasing protectionist pressures in a country.
As with tariffs and subsidies, both import quotas and VERs benefit domestic producers by limiting import Page 206
competition. As with all restrictions on trade, quotas do not benefit consumers. An import quota or VER
always raises the domestic price of an imported good. When imports are limited to a low percentage of the market by a
quota or VER, the price is bid up for that limited foreign supply. The extra profit that producers make when supply is
artificially limited by an import quota is referred to as a quota rent.
If a domestic industry lacks the capacity to meet demand, an import quota can raise prices for both the domestically
produced and the imported good. This happened in the U.S. sugar industry, in which a tariff rate quota system has long
limited the amount foreign producers can sell in the U.S. market. According to one study, import quotas have caused the
price of sugar in the United States to be as much as 40 percent greater than the world price.7 These higher prices have
translated into greater profits for U.S. sugar producers, which have lobbied politicians to keep the lucrative agreement.
They argue U.S. jobs in the sugar industry will be lost to foreign producers if the quota system is scrapped.
EXPORT TARIFFS AND BANS
An export tariff is a tax placed on the export of a good. The goal behind an export tariff is to discriminate against
exporting in order to ensure that there is sufficient supply of a good within a country. For example, in the past, China has
placed an export tariff on the export of grain to ensure that there is sufficient supply in China. Similarly, during its
infrastructure building boom, China had an export tariff in place on certain kinds of steel products to ensure that there
was sufficient supply of steel within the country. The steel tariffs were removed in late 2015. Because most countries try
to encourage exports, export tariffs are relatively rare.
An export ban is a policy that partially or entirely restricts the export of a good. One well-known example was the
ban on exports of U.S. crude oil production that was enacted by Congress in 1975. At the time, Organization of the
Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) was restricting the supply of oil in order to drive up prices and punish Western
nations for their support of Israel during conflicts between Arab nations and Israel. The export ban in the United States
was seen as a way of ensuring a sufficient supply of domestic oil at home, thereby helping to keep the domestic price
down and boosting national security. The ban was lifted in 2015 after lobbying from American oil producers, who
believed that they could get higher prices for some of their output if they were allowed to sell on world markets.
LOCAL CONTENT REQUIREMENTS
A local content requirement (LCR) is a requirement that some specific fraction of a good be produced domestically.
The requirement can be expressed either in physical terms (e.g., 75 percent of component parts for this product must be
produced locally) or in value terms (e.g., 75 percent of the value of this product must be produced locally). Local content
regulations have been widely used by developing countries to shift their manufacturing base from the simple assembly of
products whose parts are manufactured elsewhere into the local manufacture of component parts. They have also been
used in developed countries to try to protect local jobs and industry from foreign competition. For example, a littleknown law in the United States, the Buy America Act, specifies that government agencies must give preference to
American products when putting contracts for equipment out to bid unless the foreign products have a significant price
advantage. The law specifies a product as “American” if 51 percent of the materials by value are produced domestically.
This amounts to a local content requirement. If a foreign company, or an American one for that matter, wishes to win a
contract from a U.S. government agency to provide some equipment, it must ensure that at least 51 percent of the
product by value is manufactured in the United States.
Local content regulations provide protection for a domestic producer of parts in the same way an import quota
does: by limiting foreign competition. The aggregate economic effects are also the same; domestic producers Page 207
benefit, but the restrictions on imports raise the prices of imported components. In turn, higher prices for
imported components are passed on to consumers of the final product in the form of higher final prices. So as with all
trade policies, local content regulations tend to benefit producers and not consumers.
ADMINISTRATIVE POLICIES
In addition to the formal instruments of trade policy, governments of all types sometimes use informal or administrative
policies to restrict imports and boost exports. Administrative trade policies are bureaucratic rules designed to make it
difficult for imports to enter a country. It has been argued that the Japanese are the masters of this trade barrier. In recent
decades, Japan’s formal tariff and nontariff barriers have been among the lowest in the world. However, critics charge
that the country’s informal administrative barriers to imports more than compensate for this. For example, Japan’s car
market has been hard for foreigners to crack. In 2016, only 6 percent of the 4.9 million cars sold in Japan were foreign,
and only 1 percent were U.S. cars. American car makers have argued for decades that Japan makes it difficult to compete
by setting up regulatory hurdles, such as vehicle parts standards, that don’t exist anywhere else in the world. Ironically,
the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) addressed this issue. America would have reduced tariffs on imports of Japanese
light trucks in return for Japan adopting U.S. standards on auto parts, which would have made it easier to import and sell
American cars in Japan. However, President Donald Trump pulled America out of the TPP in January 2017.8
ANTIDUMPING POLICIES
In the context of international trade, dumping is variously defined as selling goods in a foreign market at below their
costs of production or as selling goods in a foreign market at below their “fair” market value. There is a difference
between these two definitions; the fair market value of a good is normally judged to be greater than the costs of
producing that good because the former includes a “fair” profit margin. Dumping is viewed as a method by which firms
unload excess production in foreign markets. Some dumping may be the result of predatory behavior, with producers
using substantial profits from their home markets to subsidize prices in a foreign market with a view to driving
indigenous competitors out of that market. Once this has been achieved, so the argument goes, the predatory firm can
raise prices and earn substantial profits.
Antidumping policies are designed to punish foreign firms that engage in dumping. The ultimate objective is to
protect domestic producers from unfair foreign competition. Although antidumping policies vary from country to
country, the majority are similar to those used in the United States. If a domestic producer believes that a foreign firm is
dumping production in the U.S. market, it can file a petition with two government agencies, the Commerce Department
and the International Trade Commission (ITC). If a complaint has merit, the Commerce Department may impose an
antidumping duty on the offending foreign imports (antidumping duties are often called countervailing duties). These
duties, which represent a special tariff, can be fairly substantial and stay in place for up to five years. The accompanying
Management Focus discusses how a firm, U.S. Magnesium, used antidumping legislation to gain protection from unfair
foreign competitors.
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The Case for Government Intervention
LO7-2
Understand why governments sometimes intervene in international trade.
Page 208
Now that we have reviewed the various instruments of trade policy that governments can use, it is time to look
at the case for government intervention in international trade. Arguments for government intervention take two paths:
political and economic. Political arguments for intervention are concerned with protecting the interests of certain groups
within a nation (normally producers), often at the expense of other groups (normally consumers), or with achieving some
political objective that lies outside the sphere of economic relationships, such as protecting the environment or human
rights. Economic arguments for intervention are typically concerned with boosting the overall wealth of a nation (to the
benefit of all, both producers and consumers).
MANAGEMENT FOCUS
Protecting U.S. Magnesium
In February 2004, U.S. Magnesium, the sole surviving U.S. producer of magnesium, a metal that is primarily used in the
manufacture of certain automobile parts and aluminum cans, filed a petition with the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC)
contending that a surge in imports had caused material damage to the U.S. industry’s employment, sales, market share, and
profitability. According to U.S. Magnesium, Russian and Chinese producers had been selling the metal at prices significantly
below market value. During 2002 and 2003, imports of magnesium into the United States rose 70 percent, while prices fell by 40
percent, and the market share accounted for by imports jumped to 50 percent from 25 percent.
“The United States used to be the largest producer of magnesium in the world,” a U.S. Magnesium spokesperson said at the
time of the filing. “What’s really sad is that you can be state of the art and have modern technology, and if the Chinese, who pay
people less than 90 cents an hour, want to run you out of business, they can do it. And that’s why we are seeking relief.”*
During a yearlong investigation, the ITC solicited input from various sides in the dispute. Foreign producers and consumers of
magnesium in the United States argued that falling prices for magnesium during 2002 and 2003 simply reflected an imbalance
between supply and demand due to additional capacity coming on stream not from Russia or China but from a new Canadian plant
that opened in 2001 and from a planned Australian plant. The Canadian plant shut down in 2003, the Australian plant never came
on stream, and prices for magnesium rose again in 2004.
Magnesium consumers in the United States also argued to the ITC that imposing antidumping duties on foreign imports of
magnesium would raise prices in the United States significantly above world levels. A spokesperson for Alcoa, which mixes
magnesium with aluminum to make alloys for cans, predicted that if antidumping duties were imposed, high magnesium prices in
the United States would force Alcoa to move some production out of the United States. Alcoa also noted that in 2003, U.S.
Magnesium was unable to supply all of Alcoa’s needs, forcing the company to turn to imports. Consumers of magnesium in the
automobile industry asserted that high prices in the United States would drive engineers to design magnesium out of automobiles
or force manufacturing elsewhere, which would ultimately hurt everyone.
The six members of the ITC were not convinced by these arguments. In March 2005, the ITC ruled that both China and Russia
had been dumping magnesium in the United States. The government decided to impose duties ranging from 50 percent to more
than 140 percent on imports of magnesium from China. Russian producers faced duties ranging from 19 percent to 22 percent. The
duties were to be levied for five years, after which the ITC would revisit the situation. The ITC revoked the antidumping order on
Russia in February 2011 but decided to continue placing the duties on Chinese producers. They were finally removed by the ITC
in 2014.
According to U.S. Magnesium, the initial favorable ruling allowed the company to reap the benefits of nearly $50 million in
investments made in its manufacturing plant and enabled the company to boost its capacity by 28 percent by the end of 2005.
Commenting on the favorable ruling, a U.S. Magnesium spokesperson noted, “Once unfair trade is removed from the marketplace
we’ll be able to compete with anyone.”
U.S. Magnesium’s customers and competitors, however, did not view the situation as one of unfair trade. While the imposition
of antidumping duties no doubt helped to protect U.S. Magnesium and the 400 people it employed from foreign competition,
magnesium consumers in the United States felt they were the ultimate losers, a view that seemed to be confirmed by price data. In
early 2010, the price for magnesium alloy in the United States was $2.30 per pound, compared to $1.54 in Mexico, $1.49 in
Europe, and $1.36 in China.
*Dave Anderton, “U.S. Magnesium Lands Ruling on Unfair Imports,” Deseret News, October 1, 2004, https://www.deseretnews.com/article/595095137/US-Magnesiumlauds-ruling-on-unfair-imports.html.
Sources: Dave Anderton, “U.S. Magnesium Lands Ruling on Unfair Imports,” Deseret News, October 1, 2004, p. D10; “U.S. Magnesium and Its Largest Consumers Debate
before U.S. ITC,” Platt’s Metals Week, February 28, 2005, p. 2; S. Oberbeck, “U.S. Magnesium Plans Big Utah Production Expansion,” Salt Lake Tribune, March 30, 2005;
“US to Keep Anti-dumping Duty on China Pure Magnesium,” Chinadaily.com, September 13, 2012; Lance Duronl, “No Duties for Chinese Magnesium Exporter, CIT
Affirms,” Law360, June 2, 2015; and Dan Ikenson, “Death by Antidumping,” Forbes, January 3, 2011.
POLITICAL ARGUMENTS FOR INTERVENTION
Page 209
Political arguments for government intervention cover a range of issues, including preserving jobs, protecting industries
deemed important for national security, retaliating against unfair foreign competition, protecting consumers from
“dangerous” products, furthering the goals of foreign policy, and advancing the human rights of individuals in exporting
countries.
Protecting Jobs and Industries
Perhaps the most common political argument for government intervention is that it is necessary for protecting jobs and
industries from unfair foreign competition. Competition is most often viewed as unfair when producers in an exporting
country are subsidized in some way by their government. For example, it has been repeatedly claimed that Chinese
enterprises in several industries, including aluminum, steel, and auto parts, have benefited from extensive government
subsidies. Such logic was behind the complaint that the Obama administration filed with the WTO against Chinese auto
parts producers in 2012 (see the Country Focus “Are the Chinese Illegally Subsidizing Auto Exports?” in this chapter).
More generally, Robert Scott of the Economic Policy Institute has claimed that the growth in the U.S.–China trade deficit
between 2001 and 2015 was, to a significant degree, the result of unfair competition, including direct subsidies to
Chinese producers and currency manipulations. Scott estimated that as many as 3.4 million U.S. jobs were lost as a
consequence.9 Donald Trump tapped into anxiety about job losses due to unfair trade from China during his successful
2016 presidential run.
On the other hand, critics charge that claims of unfair competition are often overstated for political reasons. For
example, as noted in the opening case, President George W. Bush placed tariffs on imports of foreign steel in 2002 as a
response to “unfair competition,” but critics were quick to point out that many of the U.S. steel producers that benefited
from these tariffs were located in states that Bush needed to win reelection in 2004. A political motive also underlay
establishment of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) by the European Union. The CAP was designed to protect the
jobs of Europe’s politically powerful farmers by restricting imports and guaranteeing prices. However, the higher prices
that resulted from the CAP have cost Europe’s consumers dearly. This is true of many attempts to protect jobs and
industries through government intervention. For example, the imposition of steel tariffs in 2002 raised steel prices for
American consumers, such as automobile companies, making them less competitive in the global marketplace.
Protecting National Security
Countries sometimes argue that it is necessary to protect certain industries because they are important for national
security. Defense-related industries often get this kind of attention (e.g., aerospace, advanced electronics, and
semiconductors). Although now uncommon, this argument is still made sometimes. When the Trump administration
announced tariffs on imports of foreign steel and aluminum on March 1, 2018, national security issues were cited as a
primary justification. This was the first time since 1986 that a national security threat was used to justify tariffs imposed
by the United States. In 2017, the United States was importing about 30 percent of steel used in the country, with the
largest source of imports being Canada and Mexico. Interestingly, and counter to the argument of the Trump
administration, critics argued that by raising input prices for many U.S. defense contractors, who tend to be big
consumers of steel and aluminum, the tariffs would actually harm the U.S. defense industry and have a negative impact
Page 210
on national security.10
global EDGE TRADE LAW
Government policy and international trade is the core focus of this chapter. This topic area has far-ranging implications, such as trade
policy, free trade, and the world’s international trading system. Basically, we are talking about a lot of legalistic aspects starting at the
government level and moving all the way to what organizations and even individuals can and cannot do globally when trading. The
globalEDGE™ section “Trade Law” (globaledge.msu.edu/global-resources/trade-law) is a unique compilation of globalEDGE™
partner designed “compendiums of trade laws,” country- and region-specific trade law, free online learning modules created for globalEDGE™
on various aspects of trade law, and much more. One fascinating resource related to trade law is the Anti-Counterfeiting and Product
Protection Program (A-CAPPP). A-CAPPP includes counterfeiting-related webinars, presentations, and research-related materials and
working papers. Do you know what counterfeiting is? Take a look at the “Trade Law” section of globalEDGE™ and especially the ACAPPP site to become more familiar with the topic. (Is China really as bad as many in the international community think?)
Retaliating
Some argue that governments should use the threat to intervene in trade policy as a bargaining tool to help open foreign
markets and force trading partners to “play by the rules of the game.” The U.S. government has used the threat of
punitive trade sanctions to try to get the Chinese government to enforce its intellectual property laws. Lax enforcement of
these laws had given rise to massive copyright infringements in China that had been costing U.S. companies such as
Microsoft hundreds of millions of dollars per year in lost sales revenues. After the United States threatened to impose
100 percent tariffs on a range of Chinese imports and after harsh words between officials from the two countries, the
Chinese agreed to tighter enforcement of intellectual property regulations.11
If it works, such a politically motivated rationale for government intervention may liberalize trade and bring with it
resulting economic gains. It is a risky strategy, however. A country that is being pressured may not back down and
instead may respond to the imposition of punitive tariffs by raising trade barriers of its own. This is exactly what the
Chinese government threatened to do when pressured by the United States, although it ultimately did back down. If a
government does not back down, the results could be higher trade barriers all around and an economic loss to all
involved.
Protecting Consumers
Many governments have long had regulations to protect consumers from unsafe products. The indirect effect of such
regulations often is to limit or ban the importation of such products. For example, in 2003 several countries, including
Japan and South Korea, decided to ban imports of American beef after a single case of mad cow disease was found in
Washington State. The ban was designed to protect consumers from what was seen to be an unsafe product. Together,
Japan and South Korea accounted for about $2 billion of U.S. beef sales, so the ban had a significant impact on U.S. beef
producers. After two years, both countries lifted the ban, although they placed stringent requirements on U.S. beef
imports to reduce the risk of importing beef that might be tainted by mad cow disease (e.g., Japan required that all beef
must come from cattle under 21 months of age).
Furthering Foreign Policy Objectives
Governments sometimes use trade policy to support their foreign policy objectives.12 A government may grant
preferential trade terms to a country with which it wants to build strong relations. Trade policy has also been used several
times to pressure or punish “rogue states” that do not abide by international law or norms. Iraq labored under Page 211
extensive trade sanctions after the UN coalition defeated the country in the 1991 Gulf War until the 2003
invasion of Iraq by U.S.-led forces. The theory is that such pressure might persuade the rogue state to mend its ways, or
it might hasten a change of government. In the case of Iraq, the sanctions were seen as a way of forcing that country to
comply with several UN resolutions. The United States has maintained long-running trade sanctions against Cuba
(despite the move by the Obama administration to “normalize” relations with Cuba, these sanctions are still in place).
Their principal function is to impoverish Cuba in the hope that the resulting economic hardship will lead to the downfall
of Cuba’s communist government and its replacement with a more democratically inclined (and pro-U.S.) regime. The
United States has also had trade sanctions in place against Libya and Iran, both of which were accused of supporting
terrorist action against U.S. interests and building weapons of mass destruction. In late 2003, the sanctions against Libya
seemed to yield some returns when that country announced it would terminate a program to build nuclear weapons. The
U.S. government responded by relaxing those sanctions. Similarly, the U.S. government used trade sanctions to pressure
the Iranian government to halt its alleged nuclear weapons program. Following a 2015 agreement to limit Iran’s nuclear
program, it relaxed some of those sanctions. However, the Trump administration has since reimposed significant
sanctions, arguing that Iran was not adhering to the 2015 agreement.
Other countries can undermine unilateral trade sanctions. The U.S. sanctions against Cuba, for example, did not
stop other Western countries from trading with Cuba. The U.S. sanctions have done little more than help create a vacuum
into which other trading nations, such as Canada and Germany, have stepped.
Protecting Human Rights
Protecting and promoting human rights in other countries is an important element of foreign policy for many
democracies. Governments sometimes use trade policy to try to improve the human rights policies of trading partners.
For example, as discussed in Chapter 5, the U.S. government long had trade sanctions in place against the nation of
Myanmar, in no small part due to the poor human rights practices in that nation. In late 2012, the United States said that
it would ease trade sanctions against Myanmar in response to democratic reforms in that country. Similarly, in the 1980s
and 1990s, Western governments used trade sanctions against South Africa as a way of pressuring that nation to drop its
apartheid policies, which were seen as a violation of basic human rights.
ECONOMIC ARGUMENTS FOR INTERVENTION
With the development of the new trade theory and strategic trade policy (see Chapter 6), the economic arguments for
government intervention have undergone a renaissance in recent years. Until the early 1980s, most economists saw little
benefit in government intervention and strongly advocated a free trade policy. This position has changed at the margins
with the development of strategic trade policy, although as we will see in the next section, there are still strong economic
arguments for sticking to a free trade stance.
The Infant Industry Argument
The infant industry argument is by far the oldest economic argument for government intervention. Alexander
Hamilton proposed it in 1792. According to this argument, many developing countries have a potential comparative
advantage in manufacturing, but new manufacturing industries cannot initially compete with established industries in
developed countries. To allow manufacturing to get a toehold, the argument is that governments should temporarily
support new industries (with tariffs, import quotas, and subsidies) until they have grown strong enough to meet
international competition.
This argument has had substantial appeal for the governments of developing nations during the past 50 years, and
the GATT has recognized the infant industry argument as a legitimate reason for protectionism. Nevertheless, Page 212
many economists remain critical of this argument for two main reasons. First, protection of manufacturing
from foreign competition does no good unless the protection helps make the industry efficient. In case after case,
however, protection seems to have done little more than foster the development of inefficient industries that have little
hope of ever competing in the world market. Brazil, for example, built the world’s 10th-largest auto industry behind
tariff barriers and quotas. Once those barriers were removed in the late 1980s, however, foreign imports soared, and the
industry was forced to face up to the fact that after 30 years of protection, the Brazilian auto industry was one of the
world’s most inefficient.13
The famous cigar maker Jose Castelar Cairo, better known as El Cueto, about to roll a cigar, in Havana,
Cuba.
Esben Hansen/123RF
Second, the infant industry argument relies on an assumption that firms are unable to make efficient long-term
investments by borrowing money from the domestic or international capital market. Consequently, governments have
been required to subsidize long-term investments. Given the development of global capital markets over the past 20
years, this assumption no longer looks as valid as it once did. Today, if a developing country has a potential comparative
advantage in a manufacturing industry, firms in that country should be able to borrow money from the capital markets to
finance the required investments. Given financial support, firms based in countries with a potential comparative
advantage have an incentive to endure the necessary initial losses in order to make long-run gains without requiring
government protection. Many Taiwanese and South Korean firms did this in industries such as textiles, semiconductors,
machine tools, steel, and shipping. Thus, given efficient global capital markets, the only industries that would require
government protection would be those that are not worthwhile.
Strategic Trade Policy
Some new trade theorists have proposed the strategic trade policy argument.14 We reviewed the basic argument in
Chapter 6 when we considered the new trade theory. The new trade theory argues that in industries in which the
existence of substantial economies of scale implies that the world market will profitably support only a few firms,
countries may predominate in the export of certain products simply because they have firms that were able to Page 213
capture first-mover advantages. The long-term dominance of Boeing in the commercial aircraft industry has
been attributed to such factors.
The strategic trade policy argument has two components. First, it is argued that by appropriate actions, a
government can help raise national income if it can somehow ensure that the firm or firms that gain first-mover
advantages in an industry are domestic rather than foreign enterprises. Thus, according to the strategic trade policy
argument, a government should use subsidies to support promising firms that are active in newly emerging industries.
Advocates of this argument point out that the substantial R&D grants that the U.S. government gave Boeing in the 1950s
and 1960s probably helped tilt the field of competition in the newly emerging market for passenger jets in Boeing’s
favor. (Boeing’s first commercial jet airliner, the 707, was derived from a military plane.) Similar arguments have been
made with regard to Japan’s rise to dominance in the production of liquid crystal display screens (used in computers).
Although these screens were invented in the United States, the Japanese government, in cooperation with major
electronics companies, targeted this industry for research support in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The result was that
Japanese firms, not U.S. firms, subsequently captured first-mover advantages in this market.
The second component of the strategic trade policy argument is that it might pay a government to intervene in an
industry by helping domestic firms overcome the barriers to entry created by foreign firms that have already reaped firstmover advantages. This argument underlies government support of Airbus, Boeing’s major competitor (see the opening
case). Formed in 1966 as a consortium of four companies from Great Britain, France, Germany, and Spain, Airbus had
less than 5 percent of the world commercial aircraft market when it began production in the mid-1970s. By 2017, it was
splitting the market with Boeing. How did Airbus achieve this? According to the U.S. government, the answer is an $18
billion subsidy from the governments of Great Britain, France, Germany, and Spain.15 Without this subsidy, Airbus
would never have been able to break into the world market.
If these arguments are correct, they support a rationale for government intervention in international trade.
Governments should target technologies that may be important in the future and use subsidies to support development
work aimed at commercializing those technologies. Furthermore, government should provide export subsidies until the
domestic firms have established first-mover advantages in the world market. Government support may also be justified if
it can help domestic firms overcome the first-mover advantages enjoyed by foreign competitors and emerge as viable
com
pet it ors i n t he world mar ket ( a s in the Airb us and s emiconduct or examples ). I n t hi s case, a com
bi nat i on of hom
e-market protection and export-promoting subsidies may be needed.
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The Revised Case for Free Trade
LO7-3
Summarize and explain the arguments against strategic trade policy.
The strategic trade policy arguments of the new trade theorists suggest an economic justification for government
intervention in international trade. This justification challenges the rationale for unrestricted free trade found in the work
of classic trade theorists such as Adam Smith and David Ricardo. In response to this challenge to economic orthodoxy, a
number of economists—including some of those responsible for the development of the new trade theory, such as Paul
Krugman—point out that although strategic trade policy looks appealing in theory, in practice it may be unworkable.
This response to the strategic trade policy argument constitutes the revised case for free trade.16
RETALIATION AND TRADE WAR
Krugman argues that a strategic trade policy aimed at establishing domestic firms in a dominant position in a global
industry is a beggar-thy-neighbor policy that boosts national income at the expense of other countries. A country that
attempts to use such policies will probably provoke retaliation. In many cases, the resulting trade war between two or
more interventionist governments will leave all countries involved worse off than if a hands-off approach had Page 214
been adopted in the first place. If the U.S. government were to respond to the Airbus subsidy by increasing its
own subsidies to Boeing, for example, the result might be that the subsidies would cancel each other out. In the process,
both European and U.S. taxpayers would end up supporting an expensive and pointless trade war, and both Europe and
the United States would be worse off.
Krugman may be right about the danger of a strategic trade policy leading to a trade war. The problem, however, is
how to respond when one’s competitors are already being supported by government subsidies; that is, how should
Boeing and the United States respond to the subsidization of Airbus? According to Krugman, the answer is probably not
to engage in retaliatory action but to help establish rules of the game that minimize the use of trade-distorting subsidies.
This is what the World Trade Organization seeks to do. It should also be noted that antidumping policies can be used to
target competitors supported by subsidies who are selling goods at prices that are below their costs of production.
DOMESTIC POLICIES
Governments do not always act in the national interest when they intervene in the economy; politically important interest
groups often influence them. The European Union’s support for the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), which arose
because of the political power of French and German farmers, is an example. The CAP benefits inefficient farmers and
the politicians who rely on the farm vote but not consumers in the EU, who end up paying more for their foodstuffs.
Thus, a further reason for not embracing strategic trade policy, according to Krugman, is that such a policy is almost
certain to be captured by special-interest groups within the economy, which will distort it to their own ends. Krugman
concludes that in the United States,
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To ask the Commerce Department to ignore special-interest politics while formulating detailed policy for many industries is not
realistic; to establish a blanket policy of free trade, with exceptions granted only under extreme pressure, may not be the optimal
policy according to the theory but may be the best policy that the country is likely to get.17
Development of the World Trading System
LO7-4
Describe the development of the world trading system and the current trade issue.
Economic arguments support unrestricted free trade. While many governments have recognized the value of these
arguments, they have been unwilling to unilaterally lower their trade barriers for fear that other nations might not follow
suit. Consider the problem that two neighboring countries, say, Brazil and Argentina, face when deciding whether to
lower trade barriers between them. In principle, the government of Brazil might favor lowering trade barriers, but it
might be unwilling to do so for fear that Argentina will not do the same. Instead, the government might fear that the
Argentineans will take advantage of Brazil’s low barriers to enter the Brazilian market while continuing to shut Brazilian
products out of their market through high trade barriers. The Argentinean government might believe that it faces the
same dilemma. The essence of the problem is a lack of trust. Both governments recognize that their respective nations
will benefit from lower trade barriers between them, but neither government is willing to lower barriers for fear that the
other might not follow.18
Such a deadlock can be resolved if both countries negotiate a set of rules to govern cross-border trade and lower
trade barriers. But who is to monitor the governments to make sure they are playing by the trade rules? And who is to
impose sanctions on a government that cheats? Both governments could set up an independent body to act as a referee.
This referee could monitor trade between the countries, make sure that no side cheats, and impose sanctions on a country
if it does cheat in the trade game.
While it might sound unlikely that any government would compromise its national sovereignty by submitting to
such an arrangement, since World War II an international trading framework has evolved that has exactly these Page 215
features. For its first 50 years, this framework was known as the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade
(GATT). Since 1995, it has been known as the World Trade Organization (WTO). Here, we look at the evolution and
workings of the GATT and WTO.
FROM SMITH TO THE GREAT DEPRESSION
As noted in Chapter 5, the theoretical case for free trade dates to the late eighteenth century and the work of Adam Smith
and David Ricardo. Free trade as a government policy was first officially embraced by Great Britain in 1846, when the
British Parliament repealed the Corn Laws. The Corn Laws placed a high tariff on imports of foreign corn. The
objectives of the Corn Laws tariff were to raise government revenues and to protect British corn producers. There had
been annual motions in Parliament in favor of free trade since the 1820s, when David Ricardo was a member. However,
agricultural protection was withdrawn only as a result of a protracted debate when the effects of a harvest failure in Great
Britain were compounded by the imminent threat of famine in Ireland. Faced with considerable hardship and suffering
among the populace, Parliament narrowly reversed its long-held position.
During the next 80 years or so, Great Britain, as one of the world’s dominant trading powers, pushed the case for
trade liberalization, but the British government was a voice in the wilderness. Its major trading partners did not
reciprocate the British policy of unilateral free trade. The only reason Britain kept this policy for so long was that as the
world’s largest exporting nation, it had far more to lose from a trade war than did any other country.
By the 1930s, the British attempt to stimulate free trade was buried under the economic rubble of the Great
Depression. Economic problems were compounded in 1930, when the U.S. Congress passed the Smoot–Hawley tariff.
Aimed at avoiding rising unemployment by protecting domestic industries and diverting consumer demand away from
foreign products, the Smoot–Hawley Act erected an enormous wall of tariff barriers. Almost every industry was
rewarded with its “made-to-order” tariff. The Smoot–Hawley Act had a damaging effect on employment abroad. Other
countries reacted by raising their own tariff barriers. U.S. exports tumbled in response, and the world slid further into the
Great Depression.19
1947–1979: GATT, TRADE LIBERALIZATION, AND ECONOMIC GROWTH
Ec o n o mi c dam a g e ca u s e d b y t h e be g g ar - thy - n ei g h b o r t ra d e p o l ici es that t h e Smoot –Hawl ey
profound influence on the economic institutions and ideology of the post–World War II world. The United States
emerged from the war both victorious and economically dominant. After the debacle of the Great Depression, opinion in
the U.S. Congress had swung strongly in favor of free trade. Under U.S. leadership, the GATT was established in 1947.
The GATT was a multilateral agreement whose objective was to liberalize trade by eliminating tariffs, subsidies,
import quotas, and the like. From its foundation in 1947 until it was superseded by the WTO, the GATT’s membership
grew from 19 to more than 120 nations. The GATT did not attempt to liberalize trade restrictions in one fell swoop; that
would have been impossible. Rather, tariff reduction was spread over eight rounds.
In its early years, the GATT was by most measures very successful. For example, the average tariff declined by
nearly 92 percent in the United States between the Geneva Round of 1947 and the Tokyo Round of 1973–1979.
Consistent with the theoretical arguments first advanced by Ricardo and reviewed in Chapter 5, the move toward free
trade under the GATT appeared to stimulate economic growth.
1980–1993: PROTECTIONIST TRENDS
During the 1980s and early 1990s, the trading system erected by the GATT came under strain as pressures for greater
protectionism increased around the world. There were three reasons for the rise in such pressures during the 1980s. First,
the economic success of Japan during that time strained the world trading system (much as the success of China has
created strains today). Japan was in ruins when the GATT was created. By the early 1980s, however, it had Page 216
become the world’s second-largest economy and its largest exporter. Japan’s success in such industries as
automobiles and semiconductors might have been enough to strain the world trading system. Things were made worse by
the widespread perception in the West that despite low tariff rates and subsidies, Japanese markets were closed to
imports and foreign investment by administrative trade barriers.
Second, the world trading system was strained by the persistent trade deficit in the world’s largest economy, the
United States. The consequences of the U.S. deficit included painful adjustments in industries such as automobiles,
machine tools, semiconductors, steel, and textiles, where domestic producers steadily lost market share to foreign
competitors. The resulting unemployment gave rise to renewed demands in the U.S. Congress for protection against
imports.
A third reason for the trend toward greater protectionism was that many countries found ways to get around GATT
regulations. Bilateral voluntary export restraints (VERs) circumvented GATT agreements, because neither the importing
country nor the exporting country complained to the GATT bureaucracy in Geneva—and without a complaint, the
GATT bureaucracy could do nothing. Exporting countries agreed to VERs to avoid more damaging punitive tariffs. One
of the best-known examples was the automobile VER between Japan and the United States, under which Japanese
producers promised to limit their auto imports into the United States as a way of defusing growing trade tensions.
According to a World Bank study, 16 percent of the imports of industrialized countries in 1986 were subjected to
nontariff trade barriers such as VERs.20
THE URUGUAY ROUND AND THE WORLD TRADE ORGANIZATION
Against the background of rising pressures for protectionism, in 1986, GATT members embarked on their eighth round
of negotiations to reduce tariffs, the Uruguay Round (so named because it occurred in Uruguay). This was the most
ambitious round of negotiations yet. Until then, GATT rules had applied only to trade in manufactured goods and
commodities. In the Uruguay Round, member countries sought to extend GATT rules to cover trade in services. They
also sought to write rules governing the protection of intellectual property, to reduce agricultural subsidies, and to
strengthen the GATT’s monitoring and enforcement mechanisms.
The Uruguay Round dragged on for seven years before an agreement was reached on December 15, 1993. It went
into effect July 1, 1995. The Uruguay Round contained the following provisions:
1. Tariffs on industrial goods were to be reduced by more than one-third, and tariffs were to be scrapped on more
than 40 percent of manufactured goods.
2. Average tariff rates imposed by developed nations on manufactured goods were to be reduced to less than 4
percent of value, the lowest level in modern history.
3. Agricultural subsidies were to be substantially reduced.
4. GATT fair trade and market access rules were to be extended to cover a wide range of services.
5. GATT rules also were to be extended to provide enhanced protection for patents, copyrights, and trademarks
(intellectual property).
6. Barriers on trade in textiles were to be significantly reduced over 10 years.
7. The World Trade Organization was to be created to implement the GATT agreement.
The World Trade Organization
The WTO acts as an umbrella organization that encompasses the GATT along with two new sister bodies, one on
services and the other on intellectual property. The WTO’s General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) has taken
the lead in extending free trade agreements to services. The WTO’s Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual
Property Rights (TRIPS) is an attempt to narrow the gaps in the way intellectual property rights are protected around the
world and to bring them under common international rules. WTO has taken over responsibility for arbitrating Page 217
trade disputes and monitoring the trade policies of member countries. While the WTO operates on the basis of
consensus as the GATT did, in the area of dispute settlement, member countries are no longer able to block adoption of
arbitration reports. Arbitration panel reports on trade disputes between member countries are automatically adopted by
the WTO unless there is a consensus to reject them. Countries that have been found by the arbitration panel to violate
GATT rules may appeal to a permanent appellate body, but its verdict is binding. If offenders fail to comply with the
recommendations of the arbitration panel, trading partners have the right to compensation or, in the last resort, to impose
(commensurate) trade sanctions. Every stage of the procedure is subject to strict time limits. Thus, the WTO has
something that the GATT never had—teeth.21
WTO: EXPERIENCE TO DATE
By 2019, the WTO had 164 members, including China, which joined at the end of 2001, and Russia, which joined in
2012. WTO members collectively account for 98 percent of world trade. Since its formation, the WTO has remained at
the forefront of efforts to promote global free trade. Its creators expressed the belief that the enforcement mechanisms
granted to the WTO would make it more effective at policing global trade rules than the GATT had been. The great hope
was that the WTO might emerge as an effective advocate and facilitator of future trade deals, particularly in areas such as
services. The experience so far has been mixed. After a strong early start, since the late 1990s the WTO has been unable
to get agreements to further reduce barriers to international trade and trade and investment. There has been very slow
progress with the current round of trade talks (the Doha Round). There was also a shift back toward some limited
protectionism following the global financial crisis of 2008–2009. More recently, the 2016 vote by the British to leave the
European Union (Brexit) and the election of Donald Trump to the presidency in the United States have suggested that the
world may be shifting back toward greater protectionism. These developments have raised a number of questions about
the future direction of the WTO. Donald Trump, in particular, has expressed ambivalence about the value of the WTO,
and under his leadership the United States has stepped back from supporting the institution.
WTO as Global Police
The first two decades in the life of the WTO suggest that its policing and enforcement mechanisms are having a positive
effect.22 Between 1995 and 2018, more than 500 trade disputes between member countries were brought to the WTO.23
This record compares with a total of 196 cases handled by the GATT over almost half a century. Of the cases brought to
the WTO, three-fourths have been resolved by informal consultations between the disputing countries. Resolving the
remainder has involved more formal procedures, but these have been largely successful. In general, countries involved
have adopted the WTO’s recommendations. The fact that countries are using the WTO represents an important vote of
confidence in the organization’s dispute resolution procedures.
Expanded Trade Agreements
As explained earlier, the Uruguay Round of GATT negotiations extended global trading rules to cover trade in services.
The WTO was given the role of brokering future agreements to open up global trade in services. The WTO was also
encouraged to extend its reach to encompass regulations governing foreign direct investment, something the GATT had
never done. Two of the first industries targeted for reform were the global telecommunication and financial services
industries.
In February 1997, the WTO brokered a deal to get countries to agree to open their telecommunication markets to
competition, allowing foreign operators to purchase ownership stakes in domestic telecommunication providers and
establishing a set of common rules for fair competition. Most of the world’s biggest markets—including the United
States, European Union, and Japan—were fully liberalized by January 1, 1998, when the pact went into effect. Page 218
All forms of basic telecommunication service are covered, including voice telephone, data, and satellite and
radio communications. Many telecommunication companies responded positively to the deal, pointing out that it would
give them a much greater ability to offer their business customers one-stop shopping—a global, seamless service for all
their corporate needs and a single bill.
This was followed in December 1997 with an agreement to liberalize cross-border trade in financial services. The
deal covered more than 95 percent of the world’s financial services market. Under the agreement, which took effect at
the beginning of March 1999, 102 countries pledged to open (to varying degrees) their banking, securities, and insurance
sectors to foreign competition. In common with the telecommunication deal, the accord covers not just cross-border trade
but also foreign direct investment. Seventy countries agreed to dramatically lower or eradicate barriers to foreign direct
investment in their financial services sector. The United States and the European Union (with minor exceptions) are fully
open to inward investment by foreign banks, insurance, and securities companies. As part of the deal, many Asian
countries made important concessions that allow significant foreign participation in their financial services sectors for the
first time.
THE FUTURE OF THE WTO: UNRESOLVED ISSUES AND THE DOHA ROUND
Since the successes of the 1990s, the World Trade Organization has struggled to make progress on the international trade
front. Confronted by a slower growing world economy after 2001, many national governments have been reluctant to
agree to a fresh round of policies designed to reduce trade barriers. Political opposition to the WTO has been growing in
many nations. As the public face of globalization, some politicians and nongovernmental organizations blame the WTO
for a variety of ills, including high unemployment, environmental degradation, poor working conditions in developing
nations, falling real wage rates among the lower paid in developed nations, and rising income inequality. The rapid rise
of China as a dominant trading nation has also played a role here. Reflecting sentiments like those toward Japan 25 years
ago, many perceive China as failing to play by the international trading rules, even as it embraces the WTO.
Against this difficult political backdrop, much remains to be done on the international trade front. Four issues at the
forefront of the agenda of the WTO are antidumping policies, the high level of protectionism in agriculture, the lack of
strong protection for intellectual property rights in many nations, and continued high tariff rates on nonagricultural goods
and services in many nations. We shall look at each in turn before discussing the latest round of talks between WTO
members aimed at reducing trade barriers, the Doha Round, which began in 2001 and now seem to be stalled.
Antidumping Actions
Antidumping actions proliferated during the 1990s and 2000s. WTO rules allow countries to impose antidumping duties
on foreign goods that are being sold cheaper than at home or below their cost of production when domestic producers
can show that they are being harmed. Unfortunately, the rather vague definition of what constitutes “dumping” has
proved to be a loophole that many countries are exploiting to pursue protectionism.
Between 1995 and December 2017, WTO members had reported implementation of some 5,529 antidumping
actions to the WTO. India initiated the largest number of antidumping actions, some 888; the EU initiated 502 over the
same period, and the United States, 659. China accounted for 1,269 complaints, South Korea for 417, the United States
for 283, Taipei (China) for 296, and Japan for 202. Antidumping actions seem to be concentrated in certain sectors of the
economy, such as basic metal industries (e.g., aluminum and steel), chemicals, plastics, and machinery and electrical
equipment.24 These sectors account for approximately 70 percent of all antidumping actions reported to the WTO. Since
1995, these four sectors have been characterized by periods of intense competition and excess productive capacity, which
have led to low prices and profits (or losses) for firms in those industries. It is not unreasonable, therefore, to hypothesize
that the high level of antidumping actions in these industries represents an attempt by beleaguered Page 219
manufacturers to use the political process in their nations to seek protection from foreign competitors, which
they claim are engaging in unfair competition. While some of these claims may have merit, the process can become very
politicized as representatives of businesses and their employees lobby government officials to “protect domestic jobs
from unfair foreign competition,” and government officials, mindful of the need to get votes in future elections, oblige
by pushing for antidumping actions. The WTO is clearly worried by the use of antidumping policies, suggesting that it
reflects persistent protectionist tendencies and pushing members to strengthen the regulations governing the imposition
of antidumping duties.
Protectionism in Agriculture
Another focus of the WTO has been the high level of tariffs and subsidies in the agricultural sector of many economies.
Tariff rates on agricultural products are generally much higher than tariff rates on manufactured products or services. For
example, the average tariff rates on nonagricultural products among developed nations are around 2 percent. On
agricultural products, however, the average tariff rates are 15.4 percent for Canada, 11.9 percent for the European Union,
17.4 percent for Japan, and 4.8 percent for the United States.25 The implication is that consumers in countries with high
tariffs are paying significantly higher prices than necessary for agricultural products imported from abroad, which leaves
them with less money to spend on other goods and services.
The historically high tariff rates on agricultural products reflect a desire to protect domestic agriculture and
traditional farming communities from foreign competition. In addition to high tariffs, agricultural producers also benefit
from substantial subsidies. According to estimates from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
(OECD), government subsidies on average account for about 17 percent of the cost of agricultural production in Canada,
21 percent in the United States, 35 percent in the European Union, and 59 percent in Japan.26 OECD countries spend
more than $300 billion a year in agricultural subsidies.
Not surprisingly, the combination of high tariff barriers and subsidies introduces significant distortions into the
production of agricultural products and international trade of those products. The net effect is to raise prices to Page 220
consumers, reduce the volume of agricultural trade, and encourage the overproduction of products that are
heavily subsidized (with the government typically buying the surplus). Because global trade in agriculture currently
amounts to around 10 percent of total merchandized trade, the WTO argues that removing tariff barriers and subsidies
could significantly boost the overall level of trade, lower prices to consumers, and raise global economic growth by
freeing consumption and investment resources for more productive uses. According to estimates from the International
Monetary Fund, removal of tariffs and subsidies on agricultural products would raise global economic welfare by $128
billion annually.27 Others suggest gains as high as $182 billion.28
Production operations at J.M. Larson Dairy.
Mark Elias/Bloomberg/Getty Images
The biggest defenders of the existing system have been the advanced nations of the world, which want to protect
their agricultural sectors from competition by low-cost producers in developing nations. In contrast, developing nations
have been pushing hard for reforms that would allow their producers greater access to the protected markets of the
developed nations. Estimates suggest that removing all subsidies on agricultural production alone in OECD countries
could return to the developing nations of the world three times more than all the foreign aid they currently receive from
the OECD nations.29 In other words, free trade in agriculture could help jump-start economic growth among the world’s
poorer nations and alleviate global poverty.
Protection of Intellectual Property
Another issue that has become increasingly important to the WTO has been protecting intellectual property. The 1995
Uruguay agreement that established the WTO also contained an agreement to protect intellectual property (the TradeRelated Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, or TRIPS, agreement). The TRIPS regulations oblige WTO members to
grant and enforce patents lasting at least 20 years and copyrights lasting 50 years. Rich countries had to comply with the
rules within a year. Poor countries, in which such protection was generally much weaker, had five years’ grace, and the
very poorest had 10 years.’ The basis for this agreement was a strong belief among signatory nations that the protection
of intellectual property through patents, trademarks, and copyrights must be an essential element of the international
trading system. Inadequate protections for intellectual property reduce the incentive for innovation. Because innovation
is a central engine of economic growth and rising living standards, the argument has been that a multilateral agreement is
needed to protect intellectual property.
Without such an agreement, it is feared that producers in a country—let’s say, India—might market imitations of
patented innovations pioneered in a different country—say, the United States. This can affect international trade in two
ways. First, it reduces the export opportunities in India for the original innovator in the United States. Second, to the
extent that the Indian producer is able to export its pirated imitation to additional countries, it also reduces the export
opportunities in those countries for the U.S. inventor. Also, one can argue that because the size of the total world market
for the innovator is reduced, its incentive to pursue risky and expensive innovations is also reduced. The net effect would
be less innovation in the world economy and less economic growth.
Market Access for Nonagricultural Goods and Services
Although the WTO and the GATT have made big strides in reducing the tariff rates on nonagricultural products, much
work remains. Although most developed nations have brought their tariff rates on industrial products down to under 4
percent of value, exceptions still remain. In particular, while average tariffs are low, high tariff rates persist on certain
imports into developed nations, which limit market access and economic growth. For example, Australia and South
Korea, both OECD countries, still have bound tariff rates of 15.1 percent and 24.6 percent, respectively, on imports of
transportation equipment (bound tariff rates are the highest rate that can be charged, which is often, but not always, the
rate that is charged). In contrast, the bound tariff rates on imports of transportation equipment into the United Page 221
States, European Union, and Japan are 2.7 percent, 4.8 percent, and 0 percent, respectively. A particular area
for concern is high tariff rates on imports of selected goods from developing nations into developed nations.
COUNTRY FOCUS
Estimating the Gains from Trade for the United States
A study published by the Institute for International Economics tried to estimate the gains to the American economy from free
trade. According to the study, due to reductions in tariff barriers under the GATT and WTO since 1947, by 2003 the gross
domestic product (GDP) of the United States was 7.3 percent higher than would otherwise be the case. The benefits of that
amounted to roughly $1 trillion a year, or $9,000 extra income for each American household per year.
The same study tried to estimate what would happen if America concluded free trade deals with all its trading partners,
reducing tariff barriers on all goods and services to zero. Using several methods to estimate the impact, the study concluded that
additional annual gains of between $450 billion and $1.3 trillion could be realized. This final march to free trade, according to the
authors of the study, could safely be expected to raise incomes of the average American household by an additional $4,500 per
year.
The authors also tried to estimate the scale and cost of employment disruption that would be caused by a move to universal
free trade. Jobs would be lost in certain sectors and gained in others if the country abolished all tariff barriers. Using historical data
as a guide, they estimated that 226,000 jobs would be lost every year due to expanded trade, although some two-thirds of those
losing jobs would find reemployment after a year. Reemployment, however, would be at a wage that was 13 to 14 percent lower.
The study concluded that the disruption costs would total some $54 billion annually, primarily in the form of lower lifetime wages
to those whose jobs were disrupted as a result of free trade. Offset against this, however, must be the higher economic growth
resulting from free trade, which creates many new jobs and raises household incomes, creating another $450 billion to $1.3 trillion
annually in net gains to the economy. In other words, the estimated annual gains from trade are far greater than the estimated
annual costs associated with job disruption, and more people benefit than lose as a result of a shift to a universal free trade regime.
Source: S. C. Bradford, P. L. E. Grieco, and G. C. Hufbauer, “The Payoff to America from Global Integration,” in The United States and the World Economy: Foreign Policy
for the Next Decade, C. F. Bergsten, ed. (Washington, DC: Institute for International Economics, 2005).
In addition, tariffs on services remain higher than on industrial goods. The average tariff on business and financial
services imported into the United States, for example, is 8.2 percent, into the EU it is 8.5 percent, and into Japan it is
19.7 percent.30 Given the rising value of cross-border trade in services, reducing these figures can be expected to yield
substantial gains.
The WTO would like to bring down tariff rates still further and reduce the scope for the selective use of high tariff
rates. The ultimate aim is to reduce tariff rates to zero. Although this might sound ambitious, 40 nations have already
moved to zero tariffs on information technology goods, so a precedent exists. Empirical work suggests that further
reductions in average tariff rates toward zero would yield substantial gains. One estimate by economists at the World
Bank suggests that a broad global trade agreement coming out of the Doha negotiations could increase world income by
$263 billion annually, of which $109 billion would go to poor countries.31 Another estimate from the OECD suggests a
figure closer to $300 billion annually.32 See the accompanying Country Focus for estimates of the benefits to the
American economy from free trade.
Looking farther out, the WTO would like to bring down tariff rates on imports of nonagricultural goods into
developing nations. Many of these nations use the infant industry argument to justify the continued imposition of high
tariff rates; however, ultimately these rates need to come down for these nations to reap the full benefits of international
trade. For example, the bound tariff rates of 53.9 percent on imports of transportation equipment into India and 33.6
percent on imports into Brazil, by raising domestic prices, help protect inefficient domestic producers and limit Page 222
economic growth by reducing the real income of consumers who must pay more for transportation equipment
and related services.
A New Round of Talks: Doha
In 2001, the WTO launched a new round of talks between member states aimed at further liberalizing the global trade
and investment framework. For this meeting, it picked the remote location of Doha in the Persian Gulf state of Qatar.
The talks were originally scheduled to last three years, although they have already gone on for 17 years and are currently
stalled.
The Doha agenda includes cutting tariffs on industrial goods and services, phasing out subsidies to agricultural
producers, reducing barriers to cross-border investment, and limiting the use of antidumping laws. The talks are currently
ongoing. They have been characterized by halting progress punctuated by significant setbacks and missed deadlines. A
September 2003 meeting in Cancún, Mexico, broke down, primarily because there was no agreement on how to proceed
with reducing agricultural subsidies and tariffs; the EU, United States, and India, among others, proved less than willing
to reduce tariffs and subsidies to their politically important farmers, while countries such as Brazil and certain West
African nations wanted free trade as quickly as possible. In 2004, both the United States and the EU made a determined
push to start the talks again. Since then, however, no progress has been made, and the talks are in deadlock, primarily
because of disagreements over how deep the cuts in subsidies to agricultural producers should be. As of 2018, the goal
was to reduce tariffs for manufactured and agricultural goods by 60 to 70 percent and to cut subsidies to half of their
current level—but getting nations to agree to these goals was proving exceedingly difficult.
MULTILATERAL AND BILATERAL TRADE AGREEMENTS
In response to the apparent failure of the Doha Round to progress, many nations have pushed forward with multilateral
or bilateral trade agreements, which are reciprocal trade agreements between two or more partners. For example, in
2014 Australia and China entered into a bilateral free trade agreement. Similarly, in March 2012 the United States
entered into a bilateral free trade agreement with South Korea. Under this agreement, 80 percent of U.S. exports of
consumer and industrial products became duty free, and 95 percent of bilateral trade in industrial and consumer products
will be duty free by 2017 (this agreement was revised in 2018; see the Closing Case). The agreement was estimated to
boost U.S. GDP by some $10 to $12 billion. Under the Obama administration, the United States pursued two major
multilateral trade agreements, one with 11 other Pacific Rim countries including Australia, New Zealand, Japan,
Malaysia, and Chile (the TPP), and another with the European Union. However, following the accession of Donald
Trump to the presidency in the United States, the U.S. withdrew from the TPP (although the remaining 11 nations went
ahead with a revised agreement) and the trade agreement being negotiated with the EU was put on ice.
Multilateral and bilateral trade agreements are designed to capture gain from trade beyond those agreements
currently attainable under WTO treaties. Multilateral and bilateral trade agreements are allowed under WTO rules, and
countries entering into these agreements are required to notify the WTO. As of 2019, more than 470 regional or bilateral
trade agreements were in force. Reflecting the lack of progress on the Doha Round, the number of such agreements has
increased significantly since 2000 when only 94 were in force.
THE WORLD TRADING SYSTEM UNDER THREAT
In 2016, two events challenged the long-held belief that there was a global consensus behind the 70-year push to
embrace free trade and lower barriers to the cross-border flow of goods and services. The first was the decision by the
British to withdraw from the European Union following a national referendum (Brexit). We discuss Brexit in more detail
in Chapter 9, but it is worth noting that the British intention to withdraw from what is arguably one of the most Page 223
successful free trade zones in the world is a big setback for those who argue that free trade is a good thing. The
second event was the victory of Donald Trump in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. As discussed in Chapter 6, Trump
appears to hold mercantilist views on trade. He seems opposed to many free trade deals. Indeed, one of his first actions
was to pull the United States out of the Trans Pacific Partnership, a 12-nation free trade zone that was close to
ratification. In early 2018, he placed tariffs on imports of solar panels, washing machines, steel, and aluminum into the
United States, in all probability in violation of WTO rules. Trump also renegotiated NAFTA and has expressed hostility
to the WTO. Most notably, Trump sidestepped the WTO’s rules-based arbitration mechanisms in his trade dispute with
China. In late 2019, the Trump administration also blocked replacements for two judges on the WTO’s appellate body,
which hears appeals in trade disputes. With just one judge remaining, it will no longer be able to hear new cases, which
effectively undermines the WTO’s enforcement mechanism. The significance of these developments is that heretofore
both Britain and America have been leaders in the global push toward greater free trade. While Britain still seems
committed to free trade, despite the Brexit decision, the position of the United States, the world’s largest economy, is less
clear. If the U.S. continues to turn its back on new free trade deals (such as the TPP) dismantles existing ones (as Trump
threatened to do with NAFTA), and sidesteps the WTO, other nations could follow. If this happens, the impact on the
world economy will almost certainly be negative, resulting in greater protectionism, slower economic growth, and higher
unemployment around the globe.
TEST PREP
Use SmartBook to help retain what you have learned. Access your instructor’s Connect course to check out SmartBook
or go to learnsmartadvantage.com for help.
FOCUS ON MANAGERIAL IMPLICATIONS
TRADE BARRIERS, FIRM STRATEGY, AND POLICY IMPLICATIONS
LO7-5
Explain the implications for managers of developments in the world trading system.
What are the implications for business practice? Why should the international manager care about the political economy
of free trade or about the relative merits of arguments for free trade and protectionism? There are two answers to this
question. The first concerns the impact of trade barriers on a firm’s strategy. The second concerns the role that business
firms can play in promoting free trade or trade barriers.
Trade Barriers and Firm Strategy
To understand how trade barriers affect a firm’s strategy, consider first the material in Chapter 6. Drawing on the
theories of international trade, we discussed how it makes sense for the firm to disperse its various production activities
to those countries around the globe where they can be performed most efficiently. Thus, it may make sense for a firm to
design and engineer its product in one country, to manufacture components in another, to perform final assembly
operations in yet another country, and then export the finished product to the rest of the world.
Clearly, trade barriers constrain a firm’s ability to disperse its productive activities in such a manner. First and most
obvious, tariff barriers raise the costs of exporting products to a country (or of exporting partly finished products
between countries). This may put the firm at a competitive disadvantage relative to indigenous competitors in that
country. In response, the firm may then find it economical to locate production facilities in that country so that it can
compete on even footing. Second, quotas may limit a firm’s ability to serve a country from locations outside that
country. Again, the response by the firm might be to set up production facilities in that country—even though it may
result in higher production costs.
Such reasoning was one of the factors behind the rapid expansion of Japanese automaking capacity in the United
States during the 1980s and 1990s. This followed the establishment of a VER agreement between the United States and
Japan that limited U.S. imports of Japanese automobiles. Today, Donald Trump’s threat to impose high tariffs on
companies that shift their production to other nations in order to reduce costs—and then export goods back to the United
States—is forcing some enterprises to rethink their outsourcing strategy. In particular, a number of automobile
companies, including Ford and General Motors, have modified their plans to shift some production to factories Page 224
in Mexico and have announced plans to expand U.S. production in order to appease the Trump
administration.33
Third, to conform to local content regulations, a firm may have to locate more production activities in a given
market than it would otherwise. Again, from the firm’s perspective, the consequence might be to raise costs above the
level that could be achieved if each production activity were dispersed to the optimal location for that activity. And
finally, even when trade barriers do not exist, the firm may still want to locate some production activities in a given
country to reduce the threat of trade barriers being imposed in the future.
All these effects are likely to raise the firm’s costs above the level that could be achieved in a world without trade
barriers. The higher costs that result need not translate into a significant competitive disadvantage relative to other
foreign firms, however, if the countries imposing trade barriers do so to the imported products of all foreign firms,
irrespective of their national origin. But when trade barriers are targeted at exports from a particular nation, firms based
in that nation are at a competitive disadvantage to firms of other nations. The firm may deal with such targeted trade
barriers by moving production into the country imposing barriers. Another strategy may be to move production to
countries whose exports are not targeted by the specific trade barrier.
Finally, the threat of antidumping action limits the ability of a firm to use aggressive pricing to gain market share in
a country. Firms in a country also can make strategic use of antidumping measures to limit aggressive competition from
low-cost foreign producers. For example, the U.S. steel industry has been very aggressive in bringing antidumping
actions against foreign steelmakers, particularly in times of weak global demand for steel and excess capacity. In 1998
and 1999, the United States faced a surge in low-cost steel imports as a severe recession in Asia left producers there with
excess capacity. The U.S. producers filed several complaints with the International Trade Commission. One argued that
Japanese producers of hot rolled steel were selling it at below cost in the United States. The ITC agreed and levied tariffs
ranging from 18 to 67 percent on imports of certain steel products from Japan (these tariffs are separate from the steel
tariffs discussed earlier).34
Policy Implications
As noted in Chapter 6, business firms are major players on the international trade scene. Because of their pivotal role in
international trade, firms can and do exert a strong influence on government policy toward trade. This influence can
encourage protectionism, or it can encourage the government to support the WTO and push for open markets and freer
trade among all nations. Government policies with regard to international trade can have a direct impact on business.
Consistent with strategic trade policy, examples can be found of government intervention in the form of tariffs,
quotas, antidumping actions, and subsidies helping firms and industries establish a competitive advantage in the world
economy. In general, however, the arguments contained in this chapter and in Chapter 6 suggest that government
intervention has three drawbacks. Intervention can be self-defeating because it tends to protect the inefficient rather than
help firms become efficient global competitors. Intervention is dangerous; it may invite retaliation and trigger a trade
war. Finally, intervention is unlikely to be well executed, given the opportunity for such a policy to be captured by
special-interest groups. Does this mean that business should simply encourage government to adopt a laissez-faire free
trade policy?
Most economists would probably argue that the best interests of international business are served by a free trade
stance but not a laissez-faire stance. It is probably in the best long-run interests of the business community to encourage
the government to aggressively promote greater free trade by, for example, strengthening the WTO. Business probably
has much more to gain from government efforts to open protected markets to imports and foreign direct investment than
from government efforts to support certain domestic industries in a manner consistent with the recommendations of
strategic trade policy.
This conclusion is reinforced by a phenomenon we touched on in Chapter 1—the increasing integration of the
world economy and internationalization of production that has occurred over the past two decades. We live in a world
where many firms of all national origins increasingly depend on globally dispersed production systems for their
competitive advantage. Such systems are the result of freer trade. Freer trade has brought great advantages to Page 225
firms that have exploited it and to consumers who benefit from the resulting lower prices. Given the danger of
retaliatory action, business firms that lobby their governments to engage in protectionism must realize that by doing so,
they may be denying themselves the opportunity to build a competitive advantage by constructing a globally dispersed
production system. By encouraging their governments to engage in protectionism, their own activities and sales overseas
may be jeopardized if other governments retaliate. This does not mean a firm should never seek protection in the form of
antidumping actions and the like, but it should review its options carefully and think through the larger consequences.
Key Terms
free trade, p. 202
General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), p. 202
tariff, p. 202
specific tariff, p. 202
ad valorem tariff, p. 202
subsidy, p. 203
import quota, p. 205
tariff rate quota, p. 205
voluntary export restraint (VER), p. 205
quota rent, p. 206
export tariff, p. 206
export ban, p. 206
local content requirement (LCR), p. 206
administrative trade policies, p. 207
dumping, p. 207
antidumping policies, p. 207
countervailing duties, p. 207
infant industry argument, p. 211
strategic trade policy, p. 213
Smoot–Hawley Act, p. 215
multilateral or bilateral trade agreements, p. 222
SUMMARY
This chapter described how the reality of international trade deviates from the theoretical ideal of unrestricted free
trade reviewed in Chapter 6. In this chapter, we reported the various instruments of trade policy, reviewed the
political and economic arguments for government intervention in international trade, reexamined the economic case
for free trade in light of the strategic trade policy argument, and looked at the evolution of the world trading
framework. While a policy of free trade may not always be the theoretically optimal policy (given the arguments of
the new trade theorists), in practice it is probably the best policy for a government to pursue. In particular, the longrun interests of business and consumers may be best served by strengthening international institutions such as the
WTO. Given the danger that isolated protectionism might escalate into a trade war, business probably has far more to
gain from government efforts to open protected markets to imports and foreign direct investment (through the WTO)
than from government efforts to protect domestic industries from foreign competition. The chapter made the
following points:
1. Trade policies such as tariffs, subsidies, antidumping regulations, and local content requirements tend to be
pro-producer and anticonsumer. Gains accrue to producers (who are protected from foreign competitors), but
consumers lose because they must pay more for imports.
2. There are two types of arguments for government intervention in international trade: political and economic.
Political arguments for intervention are concerned with protecting the interests of certain groups, often at the
expense of other groups, or with promoting goals with regard to foreign policy, human rights, consumer
protection, and the like. Economic arguments for intervention are about boosting the overall wealth of a
nation.
3. A common political argument for intervention is that it is necessary to protect jobs. However, political
intervention often hurts consumers, and it can be self-defeating. Countries sometimes argue that it is important
to protect certain industries for reasons of national security. Some argue that government should use the threat
to intervene in trade policy as a bargaining tool to open foreign markets. This can be a risky policy; if it fails,
the result can be higher trade barriers.
4. The infant industry argument for government intervention contends that to let manufacturing get a toehold,
governments should temporarily support new industries. In practice, however, governments often end up
protecting the inefficient.
5. Strategic trade policy suggests that, with subsidies, government can help domestic firms gain first-mover
advantages in global industries where economies of scale are important. Government subsidies may also help
domestic firms overcome barriers to entry into such industries.
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6. The problems with strategic trade policy are twofold: (a) Such a policy may invite retaliation, in
which case all will lose, and (b) strategic trade policy may be captured by special-interest groups, which will
distort it to their own ends.
7. The GATT was a product of the postwar free trade movement. The GATT was successful in lowering trade
barriers on manufactured goods and commodities. The move toward greater free trade under the GATT
appeared to stimulate economic growth.
8. The completion of the Uruguay Round of GATT talks and the establishment of the World Trade Organization
have strengthened the world trading system by extending GATT rules to services, increasing protection for
intellectual property, reducing agricultural subsidies, and enhancing monitoring and enforcement mechanisms.
9. Trade barriers act as a constraint on a firm’s ability to disperse its various production activities to optimal
locations around the globe. One response to trade barriers is to establish more production activities in the
protected country.
10. Business may have more to gain from government efforts to open protected markets to imports and foreign
direct investment than from government efforts to protect domestic industries from foreign competition.
Critical Thinking and Discussion Questions
1. Do you think governments should consider human rights when granting preferential trading rights to
countries? What are the arguments for and against taking such a position?
2. Whose interests should be the paramount concern of government trade policy: the interests of producers
(businesses and their employees) or those of consumers?
3. Given the arguments relating to the new trade theory and strategic trade policy, what kind of trade policy
should business be pressuring government to adopt?
4. You are an employee of a U.S. firm that produces personal computers in Thailand and then exports them to
the United States and other countries for sale. The personal computers were originally produced in Thailand to
take advantage of relatively low labor costs and a skilled workforce. Other possible locations considered at the
time were Malaysia and Hong Kong. The U.S. government decides to impose punitive 100 percent ad valorem
tariffs on imports of computers from Thailand to punish the country for administrative trade barriers that
restrict U.S. exports to Thailand. How should your firm respond? What does this tell you about the use of
targeted trade barriers?
5. Reread the Management Focus “Protecting U.S. Magnesium.” Who gains most from the antidumping duties
levied by the United States on imports of magnesium from China and Russia? Who are the losers? Are these
duties in the best national interests of the United States?
global EDGE research
task globaledge.msu.edu
Use the globalEDGE™ website (globaledge.msu.edu) to complete the following exercises:
1. You work for a pharmaceutical company that hopes to provide products and services in New Zealand. Yet
management’s current knowledge of this country’s trade policies and barriers is limited. After searching a
resource that summarizes the import and export regulations, outline the most important foreign trade barriers
your firm’s managers must keep in mind while developing a strategy for entry into New Zealand’s
pharmaceutical market.
2. The number of member nations of the World Trade Organization has increased considerably in recent years.
In addition, some nonmember countries have observer status in the WTO. Such status requires accession
negotiations to begin within five years of attaining this preliminary position. Visit the WTO’s website to
identify a list of current members and observers. Identify the last five countries that joined the WTO as
members. Also, examine the list of current observer countries. Do you notice anything in particular about the
countries that have recently joined or have observer status?
CLOSING CASE
Page 227
The United States and South Korea Strike a Revised Trade Deal
In 2012, a free trade deal between the United States and South Korea went into effect. In 2016, the United States
exported $63.8 billion in goods and services to South Korea, and imported $80.8 billion, resulting in a trade deficit of
$17 billion. During the U.S. election campaign in 2016, Donald Trump, who became President in 2017, called the deal
“horrible” and a “job killer.”
Given Trump’s opposition to the free trade deal, it was no surprise when, in January 2018, the U.S. announced it
was entering into negotiations with South Korea to revise the terms of the agreement. Complicating matters were two
factors. First, in early March 2018, the Trump administration placed a 25 percent tariff on imports of steel. As the thirdlargest supplier of foreign steel to the United States, these tariffs threatened to harm the South Korean steel industry.
Moreover, the global tariffs were technically in violation of the World Trade Organization treaty, to which both the
United States and South Korea were signatories. Second, South Korea is an important U.S. ally. The country’s support
was crucial in putting pressure on North Korea to halt its nuclear weapons program. Given this, many observers
wondered why the Trump administration was pressuring South Korea at a time when it needed to work together with the
nation to keep North Korea in check.
Perhaps because of geopolitical considerations, the negotiations proceeded very quickly. Trade in automobiles was
central to the negotiations, because the Trump administration saw it as a primary cause of the trade deficit. In 2017, the
United States imported nearly $16 billion worth of South Korean passenger cars, but exported only $1.5 billion worth to
South Korea. Significant automobile production in the U.S. is concentrated in swing states such as Michigan and Ohio,
which helped elect Trump to the presidency.
In late March, the two countries announced they had reached a revised deal. Under the terms of this deal, South
Korea would be exempt from the 25 percent tariff on steel imports into the United States. Instead, South Korea agreed to
a quota that would limit its steel exports to the U.S. to about 70 percent of what they had been in 2017.
In return, South Korea made two concessions. First, the deal extended for 20 years a 25 percent tariff on exports of
South Korean light trucks to the United States (under the original agreement, the 25 percent tariff was set to expire in
2021). This will likely be a significant boon to U.S. auto manufactures, because the light truck segment is one that they
dominate. Second, the Koreans agreed to lift their annual quota on imports of U.S. cars into the country from 25,000 per
manufacturer to 50,000 per manufacturer. Beyond that, U.S. cars sold in South Korea would have to adhere to Korea’s
stringent safety and environmental standards, which the Trump administration has characterized as “burdensome
regulations” designed to make it difficult for U.S. companies to sell vehicles in Korea. That being said, the reality is that
U.S. auto companies were not even close to reaching the old quota limit of 25,000 cars a year, so lifting the cap may be
primarily symbolic.
Kim Jae-Hwan/AFP/Getty Images
The deal will also establish a side agreement between the United States and South Korea that is intended to deter
“competitive devaluation” of both countries’ currencies—which can artificially lower the cost of imports bought by
consumers—and to create more transparency on issues of monetary policy. Administration officials suggested that this
new type of arrangement was likely to be replicated in other trade deals, though they acknowledged it was not
enforceable.
The deal allows President Trump to claim that his “get tough” approach to trade negotiations works. For their part,
the South Koreans were reportedly pleased that they didn’t have to give ground on opening up their agricultural industry
to U.S. imports, where administrative tariff barriers have limited importation of some low-priced American foodstuffs
such as rice and potatoes.
Sources: Michael Shear and Alan Rappeport, “Trump Secures Trade Deal with South Korea Ahead of Nuclear Talks,” The New York Times, March 27, 2018; Scott Horsley, “Trump
Administration Strikes Trade Deal with South Korea,” NPR Politics, March 27, 2018; Patrick Gillespie, “New US Deal with South Korea: What You Need to Know,” CNN Money, March
28, 2018.
Page 228
Case Discussion Questions
1. Why do you think the Obama administration pursued a trade deal with Korea in 2012? What were the potential
economic and political benefits? What were the potential costs?
2. Is there any evidence that the 2012 free trade deal between the United States and South Korea was a “job killer”
as claimed by President Trump?
3. What were the motivations of the Trump administration in renegotiating the 2012 deal?
4. Who benefits from the revised (2018) deal? Who might lose? Does the 2018 deal represent an improvement over
that ratified in 2012?
Design elements: Modern textured halftone: ©VIPRESIONA/Shutterstock; globalEDGE icon: ©globalEDGE; All others: ©McGraw-Hill Education
Endnotes
1. For a detailed welfare analysis of the effect of a tariff, see P. R. Krugman and M. Obstfeld, International
Economics: Theory and Policy (New York: HarperCollins, 2000), Ch. 8.
2. Christian Henn and Brad McDonald, “Crisis Protectionism: The Observed Trade Impact,” IMF Economic Review
62, no. 1 (April 2014), pp. 77–118.
3. World Trade Organization, World Trade Report 2006 (Geneva: WTO, 2006).
4. The study was undertaken by Kym Anderson of the University of Adelaide. See “A Not So Perfect Market,” The
Economist: Survey of Agriculture and Technology, March 25, 2000, pp. 8–10.
5. K. Anderson, W. Martin, and D. van der Mensbrugghe, “Distortions to World Trade: Impact on Agricultural
Markets and Farm Incomes,” Review of Agricultural Economics 28 (Summer 2006), pp. 168–94.
6. J. B. Teece, “Voluntary Export Restraints Are Back; They Didn’t Work the Last Time,” Automotive News, April
23, 2012.
7. G. Hufbauer and Z. A. Elliott, Measuring the Costs of Protectionism in the United States (Washington, DC:
Institute for International Economics, 1993).
8. Sean McLain, “American Cars in Japan: Lost in Translation,” The Wall Street Journal, January 26, 2017.
9. Robert E. Scott. “Growth in US-China Trade Deficit Between 2001–2015 Cost 3.4 Million Jobs,” Economic
Policy Institute, January 31, 2017.
10. Alan Goldstein, “Sematech Members Facing Dues Increase; 30% Jump to Make Up for Loss of Federal
Funding,” Dallas Morning News, July 27, 1996, p. 2F.
11. N. Dunne and R. Waters, “U.S. Waves a Big Stick at Chinese Pirates,” Financial Times, January 6, 1995, p. 4.
12. Peter S. Jordan, “Country Sanctions and the International Business Community,” American Society of
International Law Proceedings of the Annual Meeting 20, no. 9 (1997), pp. 333–42.
13. “Brazil’s Auto Industry Struggles to Boost Global Competitiveness,” Journal of Commerce, October 10, 1991, p.
6A.
14. For reviews, see J. A. Brander, “Rationales for Strategic Trade and Industrial Policy,” in Strategic Trade Policy
and the New International Economics, P. R. Krugman, ed. (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1986); P. R. Krugman,
“Is Free Trade Passé?” Journal of Economic Perspectives 1 (1987), pp. 131–44; P. R. Krugman, “Does the New
Trade Theory Require a New Trade Policy?” World Economy 15, no. 4 (1992), pp. 423–41.
15. “Airbus and Boeing: The Jumbo War,” The Economist, June 15, 1991, pp. 65–66.
16. For details, see Krugman, “Is Free Trade Passé?”; Brander, “Rationales for Strategic Trade and Industrial Policy.”
17. Krugman, R. Paul. ‘’Is Free Trade Passé?’’ The Journal of Economic Perspectives 1, no. 2 (Autumn 1987), 131–
44. https://www.jstor.org/stable/1942985?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents.
18. This dilemma is a variant of the famous prisoner’s dilemma, which has become a classic metaphor for the
difficulty of achieving cooperation between self-interested and mutually suspicious entities. For a good general
introduction, see A. Dixit and B. Nalebuff, Thinking Strategically: The Competitive Edge in Business, Politics,
and Everyday Life (New York: Norton, 1991).
19. Note that the Smoot-Hawley Act did not cause the Great Depression. However, the beggar-thy-neighbor trade
policies that it ushered in certainly made things worse. See J. Bhagwati, Protectionism (Cambridge, MA: MIT
Press, 1988).
20. World Bank, World Development Report (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987).
21. Frances Williams, “WTO—New Name Heralds New Powers,” Financial Times, December 16, 1993, p. 5;
Frances Williams, “GATT’s Successor to Be Given Real Clout,” Financial Times, April 4, 1994, p. 6.
22. W. J. Davey, “The WTO Dispute Settlement System: The First Ten Years,” Journal of International Economic
Law,
March
2005,
pp.
17–28;
WTO
Annual
Report,
2016,
archived
at
www.wto.org/english/res_e/publications_e/anrep16_e.htm.
23. Information provided on WTO website, www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/dispu_e/dispu_status_e.htm.
24. Data at www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/adp_e/adp_e.htm.
25. World Trade Organization, World Tariff Profiles 2017 (Geneva: WTO, 2017).
26. OECD (2018), Agricultural Policy Monitoring and Evaluation 2018, OECD Publishing, Paris,
https://doi.org/10.1787/agr_pol-2018-en.
27. World Trade Organization, Annual Report by the Director General 2003 (Geneva: WTO, 2003).
28. Anderson et al., “Distortions to World Trade.”
29. World Trade Organization, Annual Report 2002 (Geneva: WTO, 2002).
30. S. C. Bradford, P. L. E. Grieco, and G. C. Hufbauer, “The Payoff to America from Global Integration,” in The
United States and the World Economy: Foreign Policy for the Next
Decade, C. F. Bergsten, ed. (Washington, DC: Institute for International Economics, 2005).
31. World Bank, Global Economic Prospects 2005 (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2005).
32. “Doha Development Agenda,” OECD Observer, September 2006, pp. 64–67.
33. Peter Nicholas, “Trump Warns Auto Executive on Moving Business Overseas,” The Wall Street Journal, January
24, 2017.
34. “Punitive Tariffs Are Approved on Imports of Japanese Steel,” The New York Times, June 12, 1999, p. A3.
part three The Global Trade and Investment
Environment
Page 230
Foreign Direct Investment
8
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
After reading this chapter, you will be able to:
LO8-1
Recognize current trends regarding foreign direct investment (FDI) in the world economy.
LO8-2
Explain the different theories of FDI.
LO8-3
Understand how political ideology shapes a government’s attitudes toward FDI.
LO8-4
Describe the benefits and costs of FDI to home and host countries.
LO8-5
Explain the range of policy instruments that governments use to influence FDI.
LO8-6
Identify the implications for managers of the theory and government policies associated with FDI.
Shen Chunchen/VCG/Getty Images
Page 231
Starbucks’ Foreign Direct Investment
OPENING CASE
Forty years ago, Starbucks was a single store in Seattle’s Pike Place Market selling premium-roasted coffee. Today, it is a global
roaster and retailer of coffee, with more than 28,000 stores in 76 countries. Starbucks set out on its current course in the 1980s when
the company’s director of marketing, Howard Schultz, came back from a trip to Italy enchanted with the Italian coffeehouse
experience. Schultz, who later became CEO, persuaded the company’s owners to experiment with the coffeehouse format—and the
Starbucks experience was born. The strategy was to sell the company’s own premium roasted coffee and freshly brewed espressostyle coffee beverages, along with a variety of pastries, coffee accessories, teas, and other products, in a tastefully designed
coffeehouse setting. From the outset, the company focused on selling “a third-place experience,” rather than just the coffee. The
formula led to spectacular success in the United States, where Starbucks went from obscurity to one of the best-known brands in the
country in a decade. Thanks to Starbucks, coffee stores became places for relaxation, chatting with friends, reading the newspaper,
holding business meetings, or (more recently) browsing the web.
In 1995, with 700 stores across the United States, Starbucks began exploring foreign opportunities. The first target market was
Japan. The company established a joint venture with a local retailer, Sazaby Inc. Each company held a 50 percent stake in the venture:
Starbucks Coffee of Japan. Starbucks initially invested $10 million in this venture, its first foreign direct investment. The Starbucks
format was then licensed to the venture, which was charged with taking over responsibility for growing Starbucks’ presence in Japan.
To make sure the Japanese operations replicated the “Starbucks experience” in North America, Starbucks transferred some
employees to the Japanese operation. The joint venture agreement required all Japanese store managers and employees to attend
training classes similar to those given to U.S. employees. The agreement also required that stores adhere to the design parameters
established in the United States. In 2001, the company introduced a stock option plan for all Japanese employees, making it the first
company in Japan to do so. Skeptics doubted that Starbucks would be able to replicate its North American success overseas, but by
the end of 2018 Starbucks’ had some 1,286 stores and a profitable business in Japan. Along the way, in 2015, Starbucks acquired
Starbucks Coffee of Japan, making the stores wholly owned as opposed to licensed.
After Japan, the company embarked on an aggressive foreign investment program. In 1998, it purchased Seattle Coffee, a British
coffee chain with 60 retail stores, for $84 million. An American couple, originally from Seattle, had started Seattle Coffee with the
intention of establishing a Starbucks-like chain in Britain. By 2018, Starbucks had almost 1,000 stores in the UK.
In the late 1990s, Starbucks also opened stores in Taiwan, China, Singapore, Thailand, New Zealand, South Korea, and Malaysia.
In Asia, Starbucks’ most common strategy was to license its format to a local operator or joint venture partner in return for initial
licensing fees and royalties on store revenues. As in Japan, Starbucks insisted on an intensive employee-training program and strict
specifications regarding the format and layout of the store.
China has developed into Starbucks’ fastest-growing market and is now second only to the United States in terms of store count
and revenues. Although China has historically been a nation of tea drinkers, the third-place coffee culture pioneered by Starbucks has
gained significant traction in the nation’s large cities where wealthy and middle-class customers will pay $5 for a cup of coffee. As
with many other nations, Starbucks originally entered China by setting up a joint venture with a local company and licensing its
format to that entity. That changed in 2018 when Starbucks bought out its East China venture partner in order to attain greater control
over its growth strategy. According to Belinda Wong, CEO of Starbucks’ China operations, “Full ownership will give us the
opportunity to fully leverage the company’s robust business infrastructure to deliver an elevated coffee, in-store third place
experience and digital innovation to our customers, and further strengthen the career development opportunities for our people”.* The
company now aims to have 6,000 wholly owned stores in China by the end of 2022, up from 3,500 at the end of fiscal 2018.
*Belinda Wong, “Starbucks Acquires Remaining Shares of East China Business; Move Accelerates Company’s Long-term Commitment to China,” Starbucks, 2017.
Sources: Starbucks 2018 10K; J. Ordonez, “Starbucks to Start Major Expansion in Overseas Market,” The Wall Street Journal, October 27, 2000, p. B10; S. Homes and D.
Bennett, “Planet Starbucks,” BusinessWeek, September 9, 2002, pp. 99–110; “Starbucks Outlines International Growth Strategy,” Business Wire, October 14, 2004; A. Yeh,
“Starbucks Aims for New Tier in China,” Financial Times, February 14, 2006, p. 17; Laurie Burkitt, “Starbucks to Add Thousands of Stores in China,” The Wall Street Journal,
January 12, 2016; “Starbucks to Acquire remaining Shares of East China JV,” Starbucks press release, July 27, 2017; Jon Bird, “Roasted: How China Is Showing the Way for
Starbucks in the US,” Forbes, January 15, 2019; Eric Sylvers, “After 25,000 Stores in 78 Countries, Starbucks Turns to Italy,” The Wall Street Journal, September 6, 2018.
Page 232
Introduction
Foreign direct investment (FDI) occurs when a firm invests directly in facilities to produce or market a good or service in
a foreign country. According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, FDI occurs whenever a U.S. citizen, organization, or
affiliated group takes an interest of 10 percent or more in a foreign business entity. Once a firm undertakes FDI, it
becomes a multinational enterprise. The investments made by Starbucks in stores in countries such as Japan, the UK, and
China are all examples of FDI (see the opening case). While much FDI takes the form of greenfield ventures—building
up subsidiaries from scratch—acquisitions and joint ventures with well-established foreign entities are also important
vehicles for foreign direct investment. Starbucks has used both of these.
This chapter begins by looking at the importance of FDI in the world economy. Next, we review the theories that
have been used to explain why enterprises undertake foreign direct investment. These theories can explain why
Starbucks entered into joint venture partnerships with local producers in order to license its store format in countries such
as Japan and China. These countries are so different from the U.S. in terms of their business systems, laws, and culture
that Starbucks needed the expertise of a foreign partner to help navigate the problems associated with doing business in a
foreign country. After discussing theories of FDI, this chapter then looks at U.S. government policy toward foreign direct
investment. The chapter closes with a section on the implications of the material discussed here, as they relate to
management practice.
Foreign Direct Investment in the World Economy
LO8-1
Recognize current trends regarding foreign direct investment (FDI) in the world economy.
When discussing foreign direct investment, it is important to distinguish between the flow of FDI and the stock of FDI.
The flow of FDI refers to the amount of FDI undertaken over a given time period (normally a year). The stock of FDI
refers to the total accumulated value of foreign-owned assets at a given time. We also talk of outflows of FDI, meaning
the flow of FDI out of a country, and inflows of FDI, the flow of FDI into a country.
TRENDS IN FDI
The past 25 years have seen a marked increase in both the flow and stock of FDI in the world economy. The average
yearly outflow of FDI increased from $250 billion in 1990 to a peak of $2.2 trillion in 2007, before slipping back to
around $1 trillion by 2018 (see Figure 8.1).1 Despite the pullback since 2007, since 1990 the flow of FDI has accelerated
faster than the growth in world trade and world output. For example, between 1990 and 2017, the total flow of FDI from
all countries increased around sixfold, while world trade by value grew fourfold and world output by around 60 percent.2
As a result of the strong FDI flows, by 2018 the global stock of FDI was about $31 trillion. The foreign affiliates of
multinationals had $27 trillion in global sales in 2018, compared to $23 trillion in global exports of goods and services,
and accounted for more than one-third of all cross-border trade in goods and services.3 Clearly, by any measure, FDI is a
very important phenomenon in the global economy.
FIGURE 8.1 FDI outflows, 1990–2018 ($ billions).
Source: UNCTAD statistical data set, http://unctadstat.unctad.org.
FDI has grown rapidly for several reasons. First, despite the general decline in trade barriers over the past 30 years,
firms still fear protectionist pressures. Executives see FDI as a way of circumventing future trade barriers. Given the
rising pressures for protectionism associated with the election of Donald Trump as President in the United States and the
decision by the British to leave the European Union, this seems likely to continue for some time. Second, much of the
increase in FDI has been driven by the political and economic changes that have been occurring in many of the world’s
developing nations. The general shift toward democratic political institutions and free market economies that we
discussed in Chapter 3 has encouraged FDI. Across much of Asia, eastern Europe, and Latin America, economic growth,
economic deregulation, privatization programs that are open to foreign investors, and removal of many restrictions on
FDI have made these countries more attractive to foreign multinationals. According to the United Nations, Page 233
According to UN data, some 80 percent of the more that 1,500 changes made to national laws governing
foreign direct investment since 2000 have created a more favorable environment.4
The globalization of the world economy has also had a positive effect on the volume of FDI. Many firms see the
whole world as their market, and they are undertaking FDI in an attempt to make sure they have a significant presence in
many regions of the world. For example, around 43 percent of the sales of American firms in the S&P 500 index are
generated abroad.5 For reasons that we explore later in this book, many firms now believe it is important to have
production facilities close to their major customers. This too creates pressure for greater FDI.
THE DIRECTION OF FDI
Historically, most FDI has been directed at the developed nations of the world as firms based in advanced countries
invested in the others’ markets (see Figure 8.2). During the 1980s and 1990s, the United States was often the favorite
target for FDI inflows. The United States has been an attractive target for FDI because of its large and wealthy Page 234
domestic markets, its dynamic and stable economy, a favorable political environment, and the openness of the
country to FDI. Investors include firms based in Great Britain, Japan, Germany, Holland, and France. Inward investment
into the United States remained high during the 2000s and stood at $252 billion in 2018. The developed nations of
Europe have also been recipients of significant FDI inflows, principally from the United States and other European
nations. In 2017, inward investment into Europe was $172 billion. The United Kingdom and France have historically
been the largest recipients of inward FDI.6
FIGURE 8.2 FDI inflows by region, 1995–2018 ($ billions).
Source: UNCTAD statistical data set, http://unctadstat.unctad.org.
However, over the last decade, FDI inflows directed at developing nations and the transition economies of eastern
Europe and the old Soviet Union have increased markedly (see Figure 8.2) and in 2018 they surpassed inflows into
developed nations for the first time. Most recent inflows into developing nations have been targeted at the emerging
economies of Southeast Asia. Driving much of the increase has been the growing importance of China as a recipient of
FDI, which attracted about $60 billion of FDI in 2004 and rose steadily to hit a record $139 billion in 2018.7 The reasons
for the strong flow of investment into China are discussed in the accompanying Country Focus. Latin America is the next
most important region in the developing world for FDI inflows. In 2017, total inward investments into this region
reached $147 billion. Brazil has historically been the top recipient of inward FDI in Latin America. In Central America,
Mexico has been a big recipient of inward investment thanks to its proximity to the United States and to NAFTA. In
2018, some $32 billion of investments were made by foreigners in Mexico. At the other end of the scale, Africa has long
received the smallest amount of inward investment, $46 billion in 2018. In recent years, Chinese enterprises have
emerged as major investors in Africa, particularly in extraction industries, where they seem to be trying to ensure future
supplies of valuable raw materials. The inability of Africa to attract greater investment is in part a reflection of the
political unrest, armed conflict, and frequent changes in economic policy in the region.8
Did You Know?
Did you know that the value of Foreign Direct Investment has been growing faster than world trade and world output?
Visit your instructor’s Connect® course and click on your eBook or Smartbook® to view a short video explanation from
the author.
THE SOURCE OF FDI
Since World War II, the United States has consistently been the largest source country for FDI. Other important source
countries include the United Kingdom, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Japan. Collectively, these six countries
accounted for 60 percent of all FDI outflows for 1998–2018 (see Figure 8.3). As might be expected, these countries have
long predominated in rankings of the world’s largest multinationals, although as noted in Chapter 1, mainland China is
now rising fast in the rankings.9 Excluding China, these nations dominate primarily because they were the Page 235
most developed nations with the largest economies during much of the postwar period and therefore home to
many of the largest and best-capitalized enterprises. Many of these countries also had a long history as trading nations
and naturally looked to foreign markets to fuel their economic expansion. Thus, it is no surprise that enterprises based
there have been at the forefront of foreign investment trends.
FIGURE 8.3 Cumulative FDI outflows, 1998–2018 ($ billions).
Source: UNCTAD statistical data set, http://unctadstat.unctad.org.
COUNTRY FOCUS
Foreign Direct Investment in China
Beginning in late 1978, China’s leadership decided to move the economy away from a centrally planned socialist system to one
that was more market driven. The result has been 40 years of sustained high economic growth rates of between 6–10 percent,
compounded annually. This growth attracted substantial foreign investment. Starting from a tiny base, foreign investment
increased to an annual average rate of $2.7 billion between 1985 and 1990 and then surged to $40 billion annually in the late
1990s, making China the second-biggest recipient of FDI inflows in the world after the United States. The growth has continued,
with inward investments into China hitting $136 billion in 2017 (with another $104 billion going into Hong Kong). Over the past
20 years, this inflow has resulted in the establishment of more than 300,000 foreign-funded enterprises in China. The total stock of
FDI in mainland China grew from almost nothing in 1978 to $1.49 trillion in 2017 (another $1.97 trillion of FDI stock was in
Hong Kong).
The reasons for this investment are fairly obvious. With a population of more than 1.3 billion people, China represents the
world’s largest market. Historically, import tariffs made it difficult to serve this market via exports, so FDI was required if a
company wanted to tap into the country’s huge potential. China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001. As a result, average
tariff rates on imports have fallen from 15.4 percent to about 8 percent today. Even so, avoiding the tariff on imports is still a
motive for investing in China (at 8 percent, tariffs are still significantly above the average of 1.9 percent found in many developed
nations). Notwithstanding tariff rates, many foreign firms believe that doing business in China requires a substantial presence in
the country to build guanxi, the crucial relationship networks (see Chapter 4 for details). Furthermore, a combination of relatively
inexpensive labor and tax incentives, particularly for enterprises that establish themselves in special economic zones, makes China
an attractive base from which to serve Asian or world markets with exports (although rising labor costs in China are now making
this less important).
Less obvious, at least to begin with, was how difficult it would be for foreign firms to do business in China. For one thing,
despite decades of growth, China still lags behind developed nations in the wealth and sophistication of its consumer market. This
limits opportunities for Western firms. For example, real GDP per capita in China was only $7,329 in 2017, compared to $53,129
in the United States. Moreover, income and wealth in China is skewed towards a few areas, notably around Beijing and Shanghai,
where real household income per capita is about four times the level in the country’s poorest provinces.
Other problems include a highly regulated environment, which can make it problematic to conduct business transactions, and
shifting tax and regulatory regimes. Then there are problems with local joint-venture partners that are inexperienced, opportunistic,
or simply operate according to different goals. One U.S. manager explained that when he laid off 200 people to reduce costs, his
Chinese partner hired them all back the next day. When he inquired why they had been hired back, the Chinese partner, which was
government owned, explained that as an agency of the government, it had an “obligation” to reduce unemployment. Western firms
also need to be concerned about protecting their intellectual property because there is a history of intellectual property not being
respected in China, although this may now be starting to change.
Sources: Interviews by the author while in China; United Nations, World Investment Report, 2017; Linda Ng and C. Tuan, “Building a Favorable Investment Environment:
Evidence for the Facilitation of FDI in China,” The World Economy, 2002, pp. 1095–114; S. Chan and G. Qingyang, “Investment in China Migrates Inland,” Far Eastern
Economic Review, May 2006, pp. 52–57; Rachel Chang, “Here’s What China’s Middle Classes Really Earn—and Spend,” Bloomberg, March 9, 2016; Yi Wen, Income and
Living Standards Across China,” On the Economy Blog, Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis, January 8, 2018; Gordon Orr, “A Pocket Guide to Doing Business in China,”
McKinsey, October 2014, archived at www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/strategy-and-corporate-finance/our-insights/a-pocket-guide-to-doing-business-in-china.
The dramatic rise of China, particularly since 2010 when outward investment by Chinese multinationals Page 236
started to surge, may soon upset this long established narrative. In 2005, Chinese firms invested some $12
billion internationally. Since then, the figure has risen steadily, reaching a record $196 billion in 2016 before slipping
back to $130 billion in 2018. Firms based in Hong Kong accounted for another $87 billion of outward FDI in 2017 and
$85 billion in 2018. Much of the outward investment by Chinese firms has been directed at extractive industries in less
developed nations (e.g., China has been a major investor in African countries). A major motive for these investments has
been to gain access to raw materials, of which China is one of the world’s largest consumers. There are signs, however,
that Chinese firms are starting to turn their attention to more advanced nations. In 2017, Chinese firms invested $25
billion in the United States, up from $146 million in 2003.10
THE FORM OF FDI: ACQUISITIONS VERSUS GREENFIELD INVESTMENTS
FDI takes two main forms. The first is a greenfield investment, which involves the establishment of a new operation in
a foreign country. The second involves acquiring or merging with an existing firm in the foreign country. UN estimates
indicate that some 40 to 80 percent of all FDI inflows were in the form of mergers and acquisitions between 1998 and
2018.11 However, FDI flows into developed nations differ markedly from those into developing nations. In the case of
developing nations, only about one-third or less of FDI is in the form of cross-border mergers and acquisitions. The
lower percentage of mergers and acquisitions may simply reflect the fact that there are fewer target firms to acquire in
developing nations.
When contemplating FDI, when do firms prefer to acquire existing assets rather than undertake greenfield
investments? We consider this question in depth in Chapter 15. For now, we can make a few basic observations. First,
mergers and acquisitions are quicker to execute than greenfield investments. This is an important consideration in the
modern business world where markets evolve very rapidly. Many firms apparently believe that if they do not acquire a
desirable target firm, then their global rivals will. Second, foreign firms are acquired because those firms have valuable
strategic assets, such as brand loyalty, customer relationships, trademarks or patents, distribution systems, production
systems, and the like. It is easier and perhaps less risky for a firm to acquire those assets than to build them from the
ground up through a greenfield investment. Third, firms make acquisitions because they believe they can increase the
efficiency of the acquired unit by transferring capital, technology, or management skills. However, as we discuss in
Chapter 15, there is evidence that many mergers and acquisitions fail to realize their anticipated gains.12
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Theories of Foreign Direct Investment
LO8-2
Explain the different theories of FDI.
In this section, we review several theories of foreign direct investment. These theories approach the various phenomena
of foreign direct investment from three complementary perspectives. One set of theories seeks to explain why a firm will
favor direct investment as a means of entering a foreign market when two other alternatives, exporting and licensing, are
open to it. Another set of theories seeks to explain why firms in the same industry often undertake foreign direct
investment at the same time and why they favor certain locations over others as targets for foreign direct investment. Put
differently, these theories attempt to explain the observed pattern of foreign direct investment flows. A third theoretical
perspective, known as the eclectic paradigm, attempts to combine the two other perspectives into a single holistic
explanation of foreign direct investment (this theoretical perspective is eclectic because the best aspects of other theories
are taken and combined into a single explanation).
WHY FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENT?
Why do firms go to the trouble of establishing operations abroad through foreign direct investment when two
alternatives, exporting and licensing, are available to them for exploiting the profit opportunities in a foreign market?
Exporting involves producing goods at home and then shipping them to the receiving country for sale. Page 237
Licensing involves granting a foreign entity (the licensee) the right to produce and sell the firm’s product in
return for a royalty fee on every unit sold. The question is important, given that a cursory examination of the topic
suggests that foreign direct investment may be both expensive and risky compared with exporting and licensing. FDI is
expensive because a firm must bear the costs of establishing production facilities in a foreign country or of acquiring a
foreign enterprise. FDI is risky because of the problems associated with doing business in a different culture where the
rules of the game may be very different. Relative to indigenous firms, there is a greater probability that a foreign firm
undertaking FDI in a country for the first time will make costly mistakes due to its ignorance. When a firm exports, it
need not bear the costs associated with FDI, and it can reduce the risks associated with selling abroad by using a native
sales agent. Similarly, when a firm allows another enterprise to produce its products under license, the licensee bears the
costs or risks (e.g., fashion retailer Burberry originally entered Japan via a licensing contract with a Japanese retailer—
see the accompanying Management Focus). So why do so many firms apparently prefer FDI over either exporting or
licensing? The answer can be found by examining the limitations of exporting and licensing as means for capitalizing on
foreign market opportunities.
MANAGEMENT FOCUS
Burberry Shifts Its Entry Strategy in Japan
Burberry, the icon British luxury apparel company best known for its high-fashion outerwear, has been operating in Japan for
nearly half a century. Until recently, its branded products were sold under a licensing agreement with Sanyo Shokai. The Japanese
company had considerable discretion as to how it utilized the Burberry brand. It sold everything from golf bags to miniskirts and
Burberry-clad Barbie dolls in its 400 stores around the country, typically at prices significantly below those Burberry charged for
its high-end products in the United Kingdom.
For a long time, it looked like a good deal for Burberry. Sanyo Shokai did all of the market development in Japan, generating
revenues of around $800 million a year and paying Burberry $80 million in annual royalty payments. However, by 2007,
Burberry’s CEO, Angela Ahrendts, was becoming increasingly dissatisfied with the Japanese licensing deal and 22 others like it in
countries around the world. In Ahrendts’s view, the licensing deals were diluting Burberry’s core brand image. Licensees such as
Sanyo Shokai were selling a wide range of products at a much lower price point than Burberry charged for products in its own
stores. “In luxury,” Ahrendts once remarked, “ubiquity will kill you—it means that you’re not really luxury anymore.” Moreover,
with an increasing number of customers buying Burberry products online and on trips to Britain, where the brand was considered
very upmarket, Ahrendts felt that it was crucial for Burberry to tightly control its global brand image.
Ahrendts was determined to rein in licensees and regain control of Burberry’s sales in foreign markets, even if it meant taking
a short-term hit to sales. She started off the process of terminating licensees before leaving Burberry to run Apple’s retail division
in 2014. Her hand-picked successor as CEO, Christopher Bailey, who rose through the design function at Burberry, has continued
to pursue this strategy.
In Japan, the license was terminated in 2015. Sanyo Shokai was required to close nearly 400 licensed Burberry stores.
Burberry is not giving up on Japan, however. After all, Japan is the world’s second-largest market for luxury goods. Instead, the
company will now sell products through a limited number of wholly owned stores. The goal is to have 35 to 50 stores in the most
exclusive locations in Japan by 2018. They will offer only high-end products, such as Burberry’s classic $1,800 trench coat. In
general, the price point will be 10 times higher than was common for most Burberry products in Japan. The company realizes the
move is risky and fully expects sales to initially fall before rising again as it rebuilds its brand, but CEO Bailey argues that the
move is absolutely necessary if Burberry is to have a coherent global brand image for its luxury products.
Sources: Kathy Chu and Megumi Fujikawa, “Burberry Gets a Grip on Brand in Japan,” The Wall Street Journal, August 15–16, 2015; Angela Ahrendts, “Burberry’s CEO on
Turning an Aging British Icon into a Global Luxury Brand,” Harvard Business Review, January–February 2013; Tim Blanks, “The Designer Who Would be CEO,” The Wall
Street Journal Magazine, June 18, 2015; and G. Fasol, “Burberry Solves Its ‘Japan Problem,’ at Least for Now,” Japan Strategy, August 19, 2015.
Limitations of Exporting
Page 238
The viability of exporting physical goods is often constrained by transportation costs and trade barriers. When
transportation costs are added to production costs, it becomes unprofitable to ship some products over a large distance.
This is particularly true of products that have a low value-to-weight ratio and that can be produced in almost any
location. For such products, the attractiveness of exporting decreases, relative to either FDI or licensing. This is the case,
for example, with cement. Thus, Cemex, the large Mexican cement maker, has expanded internationally by pursuing
FDI, rather than exporting. For products with a high value-to-weight ratio, however, transportation costs are normally a
minor component of total landed cost (e.g., electronic components, personal computers, medical equipment, computer
software, etc.) and have little impact on the relative attractiveness of exporting, licensing, and FDI.
Transportation costs aside, some firms undertake foreign direct investment as a response to actual or threatened
trade barriers such as import tariffs or quotas. By placing tariffs on imported goods, governments can increase the cost of
exporting relative to foreign direct investment and licensing. Similarly, by limiting imports through quotas, governments
increase the attractiveness of FDI and licensing. For example, the wave of FDI by Japanese auto companies in the United
States that started in the mid-1980s and continues to this day has been partly driven by protectionist threats from
Congress and by tariffs on the importation of Japanese vehicles, particularly light trucks (SUVs), which still face a 25
percent import tariff into the United States. For Japanese auto companies, these factors decreased the profitability of
exporting and increased that of foreign direct investment. In this context, it is important to understand that trade barriers
do not have to be physically in place for FDI to be favored over exporting. Often, the desire to reduce the threat that
trade barriers might be imposed is enough to justify foreign direct investment as an alternative to exporting.
global EDGE RANKINGS
Cross-border investments have been ramped up to a relatively large degree in the last decade. Even with the economic downturn that
started in 2008, the world continued to see a great deal of foreign direct investment by companies in the last decade. Now, when the
economic prosperity is likely to be better, given that we are removed from those downturn days, the expectation is that more foreign
direct investment will be considered by companies. On globalEDGE™, there are myriad opportunities to gain more knowledge about
foreign direct investment (FDI). The “Rankings” section is a great starting point (globaledge.msu.edu/global-resources/rankings). In
this section, globalEDGE™ features several reports by A.T. Kearney—with one of them squarely centered on foreign direct investment
and a “confidence index” for FDI. The companies that participate in the regular study account for more than $2 trillion in annual global
revenue! Which countries are in the top three in the investment confidence index, and do you agree that the three countries are the best
ones to invest in if you were running a company?
Limitations of Licensing
A branch of economic theory known as internalization theory seeks to explain why firms often prefer foreign direct
investment over licensing as a strategy for entering foreign markets (this approach is also known as the market
imperfections approach).13 According to internalization theory, licensing has three major drawbacks as a strategy for
exploiting foreign market opportunities. First, licensing may result in a firm’s giving away valuable technological knowhow to a potential foreign competitor. In a classic example, in the 1960s, RCA licensed its leading-edge color Page 239
television technology to a number of Japanese companies, including Matsushita and Sony. At the time, RCA saw
licensing as a way to earn a good return from its technological know-how in the Japanese market without the costs and
risks associated with foreign direct investment. However, Matsushita and Sony quickly assimilated RCA’s technology
and used it to enter the U.S. market to compete directly against RCA. As a result, RCA was relegated to being a minor
player in its home market, while Matsushita and Sony went on to have a much bigger market share.
A second problem is that licensing does not give a firm the tight control over production, marketing, and strategy in
a foreign country that may be required to maximize its profitability. With licensing, control over production (of a good or
a service), marketing, and strategy are granted to a licensee in return for a royalty fee. However, for both strategic and
operational reasons, a firm may want to retain control over these functions. One reason for wanting control over the
strategy of a foreign entity is that a firm might want its foreign subsidiary to price and market very aggressively as a way
of keeping a foreign competitor in check. Unlike a wholly owned subsidiary, a licensee would probably not accept such
an imposition because it would likely reduce the licensee’s profit, or it might even cause the licensee to take a loss.
Another reason for wanting control over the strategy of a foreign entity is to make sure that the entity does not damage
the firm’s brand. This was the primary reason fashion retailer Burberry recently terminated its licensing agreement in
Japan and switched to a strategy of direct ownership of its own retail stores in the Japanese market (see the Management
Focus about Burberry for details).
One reason for wanting control over the operations of a foreign entity is that the firm might wish to take advantage
of differences in factor costs across countries, producing only part of its final product in a given country, while importing
other parts from where they can be produced at lower cost. Again, a licensee would be unlikely to accept such an
arrangement because it would limit the licensee’s autonomy. For reasons such as these, when tight control over a foreign
entity is desirable, foreign direct investment is preferable to licensing.
A third problem with licensing arises when the firm’s competitive advantage is based not as much on its products as
on the management, marketing, and manufacturing capabilities that produce those products. The problem here is that
such capabilities are often not amenable to licensing. While a foreign licensee may be able to physically reproduce the
firm’s product under license, it often may not be able to do so as efficiently as the firm could itself. As a result, the
licensee may not be able to fully exploit the profit potential inherent in a foreign market.
For example, consider Toyota, a company whose competitive advantage in the global auto industry is
acknowledged to come from its superior ability to manage the overall process of designing, engineering, manufacturing,
and selling automobiles—that is, from its management and organizational capabilities. Indeed, Toyota is credited with
pioneering the development of a new production process, known as lean production, that enables it to produce higherquality automobiles at a lower cost than its global rivals.14 Although Toyota could license certain products, its real
competitive advantage comes from its management and process capabilities. These kinds of skills are difficult to
articulate or codify; they certainly cannot be written down in a simple licensing contract. They are organizationwide and
have been developed over the years. They are not embodied in any one individual but instead are widely dispersed
throughout the company. Put another way, Toyota’s skills are embedded in its organizational culture, and culture is
something that cannot be licensed. Thus, if Toyota were to allow a foreign entity to produce its cars under license, the
chances are that the entity could not do so as efficiently as could Toyota. In turn, this would limit the ability of the
foreign entity to fully develop the market potential of that product. Such reasoning underlies Toyota’s preference for
direct investment in foreign markets, as opposed to allowing foreign automobile companies to produce its cars under
license.
All of this suggests that when one or more of the following conditions holds, markets fail as a mechanism for
selling know-how and FDI is more profitable than licensing: (1) when the firm has valuable know-how that cannot be
adequately protected by a licensing contract, (2) when the firm needs tight control over a foreign entity to Page 240
maximize its market share and earnings in that country, and (3) when a firm’s skills and know-how are not
amenable to licensing.
Advantages of Foreign Direct Investment
It follows that a firm will favor foreign direct investment over exporting as an entry strategy when transportation costs or
trade barriers make exporting unattractive. Furthermore, the firm will favor foreign direct investment over licensing (or
franchising) when it wishes to maintain control over its technological know-how, or over its operations and business
strategy, or when the firm’s capabilities are simply not amenable to licensing, as may often be the case. Moreover,
gaining technology, productive assets, market share, brand equity, distribution systems, and the like through FDI by
purchasing the assets of an established company can all speed up market entry, improve production in the firm’s home
base, and facilitate the transfer of technology from the acquired company to the acquiring company. We return to this
topic in Chapter 13 when we discuss different entry strategies.
THE PATTERN OF FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENT
Observation suggests that firms in the same industry often undertake foreign direct investment at about the same time.
Also, firms tend to direct their investment activities toward the same target markets. The two theories we consider in this
section attempt to explain the patterns that we observe in FDI flows.
Strategic Behavior
One theory is based on the idea that FDI flows are a reflection of strategic rivalry between firms in the global
marketplace. An early variant of this argument was expounded by F. T. Knickerbocker, who looked at the relationship
between FDI and rivalry in oligopolistic industries.15 An oligopoly is an industry composed of a limited number of large
firms (e.g., an industry in which four firms control 80 percent of a domestic market would be defined as an oligopoly). A
critical competitive feature of such industries is interdependence of the major players: What one firm does can have an
immediate impact on the major competitors, forcing a response in kind. By cutting prices, one firm in an oligopoly can
take market share away from its competitors, forcing them to respond with similar price cuts to retain their market share.
Thus, the interdependence between firms in an oligopoly leads to imitative behavior; rivals often quickly imitate what a
firm does in an oligopoly.
Imitative behavior can take many forms in an oligopoly. One firm raises prices, and the others follow; one expands
capacity, and the rivals imitate lest they be left at a disadvantage in the future. Knickerbocker argued that the same kind
of imitative behavior characterizes FDI. Consider an oligopoly in the United States in which three firms—A, B, and C—
dominate the market. Firm A establishes a subsidiary in France. Firms B and C decide that if successful, this new
subsidiary may knock out their export business to France and give a first-mover advantage to firm A. Furthermore, firm
A might discover some competitive asset in France that it could repatriate to the United States to torment firms B and C
on their native soil. Given these possibilities, firms B and C decide to follow firm A and establish operations in France.
Studies that have looked at FDI by U.S. firms show that firms based in oligopolistic industries tended to imitate
each other’s FDI.16 The same phenomenon has been observed with regard to FDI undertaken by Japanese firms.17 For
example, Toyota and Nissan responded to investments by Honda in the United States and Europe by undertaking their
own FDI in the United States and Europe. Research has also shown that models of strategic behavior in a global
oligopoly can explain the pattern of FDI in the global tire industry.18
Knickerbocker’s theory can be extended to embrace the concept of multipoint competition. Multipoint
competition arises when two or more enterprises encounter each other in different regional markets, national markets, or
industries.19 Economic theory suggests that rather like chess players jockeying for advantage, firms will try to Page 241
match each other’s moves in different markets to try to hold each other in check. The idea is to ensure that a
rival does not gain a commanding position in one market and then use the profits generated there to subsidize
competitive attacks in other markets.
Although Knickerbocker’s theory and its extensions can help explain imitative FDI behavior by firms in
oligopolistic industries, it does not explain why the first firm in an oligopoly decides to undertake FDI rather than to
export or license. Internalization theory addresses this phenomenon. The imitative theory also does not address the issue
of whether FDI is more efficient than exporting or licensing for expanding abroad. Again, internalization theory
addresses the efficiency issue. For these reasons, many economists favor internalization theory as an explanation for FDI,
although most would agree that the imitative explanation tells an important part of the story.
THE ECLECTIC PARADIGM
The eclectic paradigm has been championed by the late British economist John Dunning.20 Dunning argues that in
addition to the various factors discussed earlier, location-specific advantages are also of considerable importance in
explaining both the rationale for and the direction of foreign direct investment. By location-specific advantages,
Dunning means the advantages that arise from utilizing resource endowments or assets that are tied to a particular
foreign location and that a firm finds valuable to combine with its own unique assets (such as the firm’s technological,
marketing, or management capabilities). Dunning accepts the argument of internalization theory that it is difficult for a
firm to license its own unique capabilities and know-how. Therefore, he argues that combining location-specific assets or
resource endowments with the firm’s own unique capabilities often requires foreign direct investment. That is, it requires
the firm to establish production facilities where those foreign assets or resource endowments are located.
An obvious example of Dunning’s arguments are natural resources, such as oil and other minerals, which are—by
their character—specific to certain locations. Dunning suggests that to exploit such foreign resources, a firm must
undertake FDI. Clearly, this explains the FDI undertaken by many of the world’s oil companies, which have to invest
where oil is located in order to combine their technological and managerial capabilities with this valuable locationspecific resource. Another obvious example is valuable human resources, such as low-cost, highly skilled labor. The cost
and skill of labor varies from country to country. Because labor is not internationally mobile, according to Dunning it
makes sense for a firm to locate production facilities in those countries where the cost and skills of local labor are most
suited to its particular production processes.
However, Dunning’s theory has implications that go beyond basic resources such as minerals and labor. Consider
Silicon Valley, which is the world center for the computer and semiconductor industry. Many of the world’s major
computer and semiconductor companies—such as Apple Computer, Hewlett-Packard, Oracle, Google, and Intel—are
located close to each other in the Silicon Valley region of California. As a result, much of the cutting-edge research and
product development in computers and semiconductors occurs there. According to Dunning’s arguments, knowledge
being generated in Silicon Valley with regard to the design and manufacture of computers and semiconductors is
available nowhere else in the world. To be sure, that knowledge is commercialized as it diffuses throughout the world,
but the leading edge of knowledge generation in the computer and semiconductor industries is to be found in Silicon
Valley. In Dunning’s language, this means that Silicon Valley has a location-specific advantage in the generation of
knowledge related to the computer and semiconductor industries. In part, this advantage comes from the sheer
concentration of intellectual talent in this area, and in part, it arises from a network of informal contacts that Page 242
allows firms to benefit from each other’s knowledge generation. Economists refer to such knowledge
“spillovers” as externalities, and there is a well-established theory suggesting that firms can benefit from such
externalities by locating close to their source.21
Google Headquarters in Mountain View, California, USA.
Phillip Bond/Alamy Stock Photo
Insofar as this is the case, it makes sense for foreign computer and semiconductor firms to invest in research and,
perhaps, production facilities so they too can learn about and utilize valuable new knowledge before those based
elsewhere, thereby giving them a competitive advantage in the global marketplace.22 Evidence suggests that European,
Japanese, South Korean, and Taiwanese computer and semiconductor firms are investing in the Silicon Valley region
precisely because they wish to benefit from the externalities that arise there.23 Others have argued that direct investment
by foreign firms in the U.S. biotechnology industry has been motivated by desire to gain access to the unique locationspecific technological knowledge of U.S. biotechnology firms.24 Dunning’s theory, therefore, seems to be a useful
addition to those outlined previously because it helps explain how location factors affect the direction of FDI.25
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Political Ideology and Foreign Direct Investment
LO8-3
Understand how political ideology shapes a government’s attitudes toward FDI.
Historically, political ideology toward FDI within a nation has ranged from a dogmatic radical stance that is hostile to all
inward FDI at one extreme to an adherence to the noninterventionist principle of free market economics at the other.
Between these two extremes is an approach that might be called pragmatic nationalism.
THE RADICAL VIEW
The radical view traces its roots to Marxist political and economic theory. Radical writers argue that the multinational
enterprise (MNE) is an instrument of imperialist domination. They see the MNE as a tool for exploiting host countries to
the exclusive benefit of their capitalist–imperialist home countries. They argue that MNEs extract profits from the host
country and take them to their home country, giving nothing of value to the host country in exchange. They note, for
example, that key technology is tightly controlled by the MNE and that important jobs in the foreign subsidiaries of
MNEs go to home-country nationals rather than to citizens of the host country. Because of this, according to the radical
view, FDI by the MNEs of advanced capitalist nations keeps the less developed countries of the world relatively
backward and dependent on advanced capitalist nations for investment, jobs, and technology. Thus, according to the
extreme version of this view, no country should ever permit foreign corporations to undertake FDI because they can
never be instruments of economic development, only of economic domination. Where MNEs already exist in a country,
they should be immediately nationalized.26
From 1945 until the 1980s, the radical view was very influential in the world economy. Until the collapse of
communism between 1989 and 1991, the countries of eastern Europe were opposed to FDI. Similarly, communist
countries elsewhere—such as China, Cambodia, and Cuba—were all opposed in principle to FDI (although, in practice,
the Chinese started to allow FDI in mainland China in the 1970s). Many socialist countries—particularly in Africa,
where one of the first actions of many newly independent states was to nationalize foreign-owned enterprises—also
embraced the radical position. Countries whose political ideology was more nationalistic than socialistic further
embraced the radical position. This was true in Iran and India, for example, both of which adopted tough policies
restricting FDI and nationalized many foreign-owned enterprises. Iran is a particularly interesting case because its
Islamic government, while rejecting Marxist theory, essentially embraced the radical view that FDI by MNEs is an
instrument of imperialism.
By the early 1990s, the radical position was in retreat. There seem to be three reasons for this: (1) the collapse of
communism in eastern Europe; (2) the generally abysmal economic performance of those countries that embraced the
radical position, in addition to a growing belief by many of these countries that FDI can be an important source Page 243
of technology and jobs and can stimulate economic growth; and (3) the strong economic performance of those
developing countries that embraced capitalism rather than radical ideology (e.g., Singapore, Hong Kong, and Taiwan).
Despite this, the radical view lingers on in some countries, such as Venezuela, where the government of Hugo Chavez,
and that of his successor Nicolas Maduro, have both viewed foreign multinationals as an instrument of domination.
THE FREE MARKET VIEW
The free market view traces its roots to classical economics and the international trade theories of Adam Smith and
David Ricardo (see Chapter 6). The intellectual case for this view has been strengthened by the internalization
explanation of FDI. The free market view argues that international production should be distributed among countries
according to the theory of comparative advantage. Countries should specialize in the production of those goods and
services that they can produce most efficiently. Within this framework, the MNE is an instrument for dispersing the
production of goods and services to the most efficient locations around the globe. Viewed this way, FDI by the MNE
increases the overall efficiency of the world economy.
Imagine that Dell decided to move assembly operations for many of its personal computers from the United States
to Mexico to take advantage of lower labor costs in Mexico. According to the free market view, moves such as this can
be seen as increasing the overall efficiency of resource utilization in the world economy. Mexico, due to its lower labor
costs, has a comparative advantage in the assembly of PCs. By moving the production of PCs from the United States to
Mexico, Dell frees U.S. resources for use in activities in which the United States has a comparative advantage (e.g., the
design of computer software, the manufacture of high value-added components such as microprocessors, or basic R&D).
Also, consumers benefit because the PCs cost less than they would if they were produced domestically. In addition,
Mexico gains from the technology, skills, and capital that the computer company transfers with its FDI. Contrary to the
radical view, the free market view stresses that such resource transfers benefit the host country and stimulate its
economic growth. Thus, the free market view argues that FDI is a benefit to both the source country and the host
country.
PRAGMATIC NATIONALISM
In practice, many countries have adopted neither a radical policy nor a free market policy toward FDI but, instead, a
policy that can best be described as pragmatic nationalism.27 The pragmatic nationalist view is that FDI has both benefits
and costs. FDI can benefit a host country by bringing capital, skills, technology, and jobs, but those benefits come at a
cost. When a foreign company rather than a domestic company produces products, the profits from that investment go
abroad. Many countries are also concerned that a foreign-owned manufacturing plant may import many components
from its home country, which has negative implications for the host country’s balance-of-payments position.
Recognizing this, countries adopting a pragmatic stance pursue policies designed to maximize the national benefits
and minimize the national costs. According to this view, FDI should be allowed so long as the benefits outweigh the
costs. Japan offers an example of pragmatic nationalism. Until the 1980s, Japan’s policy was probably one of the most
restrictive among countries adopting a pragmatic nationalist stance. This was due to Japan’s perception that direct entry
of foreign (especially U.S.) firms with ample managerial resources into the Japanese markets could hamper the
development and growth of its own industry and technology.28 This belief led Japan to block the majority of applications
to invest in Japan. However, there were always exceptions to this policy. Firms that had important technology were often
permitted to undertake FDI if they insisted that they would neither license their technology to a Japanese firm nor enter
into a joint venture with a Japanese enterprise. IBM and Texas Instruments were able to set up wholly owned Page 244
subsidiaries in Japan by adopting this negotiating position. From the perspective of the Japanese government,
the benefits of FDI in such cases—the stimulus that these firms might impart to the Japanese economy—outweighed the
perceived costs.
Another aspect of pragmatic nationalism is the tendency to aggressively court FDI believed to be in the national
interest by, for example, offering subsidies to foreign MNEs in the form of tax breaks or grants. The countries of the
European Union often seem to be competing with each other to attract U.S. and Japanese FDI by offering large tax
breaks and subsidies. Historically, Britain has been the most successful at attracting Japanese investment in the
automobile industry. Nissan, Toyota, and Honda now have major assembly plants in Britain and use the country as their
base for serving the rest of Europe—with obvious employment and balance-of-payments benefits for Britain (what
happens to these investments if and when Britain exits from the EU remains to be seen). At the time of writing, Britain is
scheduled to leave the EU on January 31st, 2020. Similarly, within the United States, individual states often compete
with each other to attract FDI, offering generous financial incentives in the form of tax breaks to foreign companies
looking to set up operations in the country.
SHIFTING IDEOLOGY
Recent years have seen a marked decline in the number of countries that adhere to a radical ideology. Although few
countries have adopted a pure free market policy stance, an increasing number of countries are gravitating toward the
free market end of the spectrum and have liberalized their foreign investment regime. This includes many countries that
30 years ago were firmly in the radical camp (e.g., the former communist countries of eastern Europe, many of the
socialist countries of Africa, and India) and several countries that until recently could best be described as pragmatic
nationalists with regard to FDI (e.g., Japan, South Korea, Italy, Spain, and most Latin American countries). One result
has been the surge in the volume of FDI worldwide, which, as we noted earlier, has been growing faster than world
trade. Another result has been an increase in the volume of FDI directed at countries that have liberalized their FDI
regimes in the last 20 years, such as China, India, and Vietnam.
As a counterpoint, there is some evidence of a shift to a more hostile approach to foreign direct investment in some
nations. Venezuela and Bolivia have become increasingly hostile to foreign direct investment. In 2005 and 2006, the
governments of both nations unilaterally rewrote contracts for oil and gas exploration, raising the royalty rate that foreign
enterprises had to pay the government for oil and gas extracted in their territories. Following his election victory in 2006,
Bolivian president Evo Morales nationalized the nation’s gas fields and stated that he would evict foreign firms unless
they agreed to pay about 80 percent of their revenues to the state and relinquish production oversight. In some developed
nations, there is increasing evidence of hostile reactions to inward FDI as well. In Europe in 2006, there was a hostile
political reaction to the attempted takeover of Europe’s largest steel company, Arcelor, by Mittal Steel, a global company
controlled by the Indian entrepreneur Lakshmi Mittal. In mid-2005, China National Offshore Oil Company withdrew a
takeover bid for Unocal of the United States after highly negative reaction in Congress about the proposed takeover of a
“strategic asset” by a Chinese company.
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Benefits and Costs of FDI
LO8-4
Describe the benefits and costs of FDI to home and host countries.
Page 245
To a greater or lesser degree, many governments can be considered pragmatic nationalists when it comes to
FDI. Accordingly, their policy is shaped by a consideration of the costs and benefits of FDI. Here, we explore the
benefits and costs of FDI, first from the perspective of a host (receiving) country and then from the perspective of the
home (source) country. In the next section, we look at the policy instruments governments use to manage FDI.
HOST-COUNTRY BENEFITS
The main benefits of inward FDI for a host country arise from resource-transfer effects, employment effects, balance-ofp aym
e nts ef f ects, andef f ects oncom
pet i t ion andeconomic gr owt h.
Resource-Transfer Effects
Foreign direct investment can make a positive contribution to a host economy by supplying capital, technology, and
management resources that would otherwise not be available and thus boost that country’s economic growth rate.
With regard to capital, many MNEs, by virtue of their large size and financial strength, have access to financial
resources not available to host-country firms. These funds may be available from internal company sources, or, because
of their reputation, large MNEs may find it easier to borrow money from capital markets than host-country firms would.
As for technology, you will recall from Chapter 3 that technology can stimulate economic development and
industrialization. Technology can take two forms, both of which are valuable. Technology can be incorporated in a
production process (e.g., the technology for discovering, extracting, and refining oil), or it can be incorporated in a
product (e.g., personal computers). However, many countries lack the research and development resources and skills
required to develop their own indigenous product and process technology. This is particularly true in less developed
nations. Such countries must rely on advanced industrialized nations for much of the technology required to stimulate
economic growth, and FDI can provide it.
Research supports the view that multinational firms often transfer significant technology when they invest in a
foreign country.29 For example, a study of FDI in Sweden found that foreign firms increased both the labor and total
factor productivity of Swedish firms that they acquired, suggesting that significant technology transfers had occurred
(technology typically boosts productivity).30 Also, a study of FDI by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and
Development (OECD) found that foreign investors invested significant amounts of capital in R&D in the countries in
which they had invested, suggesting that not only were they transferring technology to those countries but they may also
have been upgrading existing technology or creating new technology in those countries.31
An employee uses a robotic arm to fit a wheel onto a Volkswagen AG Vento automobile on the production
line at the Volkswagen India Pvt. plant in Chakan, Maharashtra, India.
Udit Kulshrestha/Bloomberg/Getty Images
Foreign management skills acquired through FDI may also produce important benefits for the host country. Foreign
managers trained in the latest management techniques can often help improve the efficiency of operations in the host
country, whether those operations are acquired or greenfield developments. Beneficial spin-off effects may also arise
when local personnel who are trained to occupy managerial, financial, and technical posts in the subsidiary of a foreign
MNE leave the firm and help establish indigenous firms. Similar benefits may arise if the superior management skills of
a foreign MNE stimulate local suppliers, distributors, and competitors to improve their own management skills.
Employment Effects
Another beneficial employment effect claimed for FDI is that it brings jobs to a host country that would otherwise not be
created there. The effects of FDI on employment are both direct and indirect. Direct effects arise when a foreign MNE
employs a number of host-country citizens. Indirect effects arise when jobs are created in local suppliers as a result of the
investment and when jobs are created because of increased local spending by employees of the MNE. The indirect
employment effects are often as large as, if not larger than, the direct effects. For example, when Toyota decided to open
a new auto plant in France, estimates suggested the plant would create 2,000 direct jobs and perhaps another 2,000 jobs
Page 246
in support industries.32
Cynics argue that not all the “new jobs” created by FDI represent net additions in employment. In the
case of FDI by Japanese auto companies in the United States, some argue that the jobs created by this investment have
been more than offset by the jobs lost in U.S.-owned auto companies, which have lost market share to their Japanese
competitors. As a consequence of such substitution effects, the net number of new jobs created by FDI may not be as
great as initially claimed by an MNE. The issue of the likely net gain in employment may be a major negotiating point
between an MNE wishing to undertake FDI and the host government.
When FDI takes the form of an acquisition of an established enterprise in the host economy as opposed to a
greenfield investment, the immediate effect may be to reduce employment as the multinational tries to restructure the
operations of the acquired unit to improve its operating efficiency. However, even in such cases, research suggests that
once the initial period of restructuring is over, enterprises acquired by foreign firms tend to increase their employment
base at a faster rate than domestic rivals. An OECD study found that foreign firms created new jobs at a faster rate than
their domestic counterparts.33
Balance-of-Payments Effects
FDI’s effect on a country’s balance-of-payments accounts is an important policy issue for most host governments. A
country’s balance-of-payments accounts track both its payments to and its receipts from other countries. Governments
normally are concerned when their country is running a deficit on the current account of their balance of payments. The
current account tracks the export and import of goods and services. A current account deficit, or trade deficit as it is
often called, arises when a country is importing more goods and services than it is exporting. Governments typically
prefer to see a current account surplus rather than a deficit. The only way in which a current account deficit can be
supported in the long run is by selling off assets to foreigners (for a detailed explanation of why this is the case, see the
appendix to Chapter 6). For example, the persistent U.S. current account deficit since the 1980s has been financed by a
steady sale of U.S. assets (stocks, bonds, real estate, and whole corporations) to foreigners. Because national
governments invariably dislike seeing the assets of their country fall into foreign hands, they prefer their nation to run a
current account surplus. There are two ways in which FDI can help a country achieve this goal.
First, if the FDI is a substitute for imports of goods or services, the effect can be to improve the current account of
the host country’s balance of payments. Much of the FDI by Japanese automobile companies in the United States and
Europe, for example, can be seen as substituting for imports from Japan. Thus, the current account of the U.S. balance of
payments has improved somewhat because many Japanese companies are now supplying the U.S. market from
production facilities in the United States, as opposed to facilities in Japan. Insofar as this has reduced the need to finance
a current account deficit by asset sales to foreigners, the United States has clearly benefited.
A second potential benefit arises when the MNE uses a foreign subsidiary to export goods and services to other
countries. According to a UN report, inward FDI by foreign multinationals has been a major driver of export-led
economic growth in a number of developing and developed nations.34 For example, in China, exports increased from
$26 billion in 1985 to over $2 trillion in 2018. Much of this dramatic export growth was due to the presence of foreign
multinationals that invested heavily in China.
Effect on Competition and Economic Growth
Economic theory tells us that the efficient functioning of markets depends on an adequate level of competition between
producers. When FDI takes the form of a greenfield investment, the result is to establish a new enterprise, increasing the
number of players in a market and thus consumer choice. In turn, this can increase the level of competition in a national
market, thereby driving down prices and increasing the economic welfare of consumers. Increased competition tends to
stimulate capital investments by firms in plant, equipment, and R&D as they struggle to gain an edge over their Page 247
rivals. The long-term results may include increased productivity growth, product and process innovations, and
greater economic growth.35 Such beneficial effects seem to have occurred in the South Korean retail sector following the
liberalization of FDI regulations in 1996. FDI by large Western discount stores—including Walmart, Costco, Carrefour,
and Tesco—seems to have encouraged indigenous discounters such as E-Mart to improve the efficiency of their own
operations. The results have included more competition and lower prices, which benefit South Korean consumers. In a
similar vein, the Indian government has been opening up that country’s retail sector to FDI, partly because it believes
that inward investment by efficient global retailers such as Walmart, Carrefour, and IKEA will provide the competitive
stimulus that is necessary to improve the efficiency of India’s fragmented retail system.
FDI’s impact on competition in domestic markets may be particularly important in the case of services, such as
telecommunications, retailing, and many financial services, where exporting is often not an option because the service
has to be produced where it is delivered.36 For example, under a 1997 agreement sponsored by the World Trade
Organization, 68 countries accounting for more than 90 percent of world telecommunications revenues pledged to start
opening their markets to foreign investment and competition and to abide by common rules for fair competition in
telecommunications. Before this agreement, most of the world’s telecommunications markets were closed to foreign
competitors, and in most countries, the market was monopolized by a single carrier, which was often a state-owned
enterprise. The agreement has dramatically increased the level of competition in many national telecommunications
markets, producing two major benefits. First, inward investment has increased competition and stimulated investment in
the modernization of telephone networks around the world, leading to better service. Second, the increased competition
has resulted in lower prices.
HOST-COUNTRY COSTS
Three costs of FDI concern host countries. They arise from possible adverse effects on competition within the host
nation, adverse effects on the balance of payments, and the perceived loss of national sovereignty and autonomy.
Adverse Effects on Competition
Host governments sometimes worry that the subsidiaries of foreign MNEs may have greater economic power than
indigenous competitors. If it is part of a larger international organization, the foreign MNE may be able to draw on funds
generated elsewhere to subsidize its costs in the host market, which could drive indigenous companies out of business
and allow the firm to monopolize the market. Once the market is monopolized, the foreign MNE could raise prices above
those that would prevail in competitive markets, with harmful effects on the economic welfare of the host nation. This
concern tends to be greater in countries that have few large firms of their own (generally, less developed countries). It
tends to be a relatively minor concern in most advanced industrialized nations.
In general, while FDI in the form of greenfield investments should increase competition, it is less clear that this is
the case when the FDI takes the form of acquisition of an established enterprise in the host nation. Because an acquisition
does not result in a net increase in the number of players in a market, the effect on competition may be neutral. When a
foreign investor acquires two or more firms in a host country and subsequently merges them, the effect may be to reduce
the level of competition in that market, create monopoly power for the foreign firm, reduce consumer choice, and raise
prices. For example, in India, Hindustan Lever Ltd., the Indian subsidiary of Unilever, acquired its main local rival, Tata
Oil Mills, to assume a dominant position in the bath soap (75 percent) and detergents (30 percent) markets. Hindustan
Lever also acquired several local companies in other markets, such as the ice cream makers Dollops, Kwality, and
Milkfood. By combining these companies, Hindustan Lever’s share of the Indian ice cream market went from zero to 74
percent.37 However, although such cases are of obvious concern, there is little evidence that such Page 248
developments are widespread. In many nations, domestic competition authorities have the right to review and
block any mergers or acquisitions that they view as having a detrimental impact on competition. If such institutions are
operating effectively, this should be sufficient to make sure that foreign entities do not monopolize a country’s markets.
Adverse Effects on the Balance of Payments
The possible adverse effects of FDI on a host country’s balance-of-payments position are twofold. First, set against the
initial capital inflow that comes with FDI must be the subsequent outflow of earnings from the foreign subsidiary to its
parent company. Such outflows show up as capital outflow on balance-of-payments accounts. Some governments have
responded to such outflows by restricting earnings that can be repatriated to a foreign subsidiary’s home country. A
second concern arises when a foreign subsidiary imports a substantial number of its inputs from abroad, which results in
a debit on the current account of the host country’s balance of payments. One criticism leveled against Japanese-owned
auto assembly operations in the United States, for example, is that they tend to import many component parts from
Japan. Because of this, the favorable impact of this FDI on the current account of the U.S. balance-of-payments position
may not be as great as initially supposed. The Japanese auto companies responded to these criticisms by pledging to
purchase 75 percent of their component parts from U.S.-based manufacturers (but not necessarily U.S.-owned
manufacturers). When the Japanese auto company Nissan invested in the United Kingdom, Nissan responded to concerns
about local content by pledging to increase the proportion of local content to 60 percent and subsequently raising it to
more than 80 percent.
Possible Effects on National Sovereignty and Autonomy
Some host governments worry that FDI is accompanied by some loss of economic independence. The concern is that key
decisions that can affect the host country’s economy will be made by a foreign parent that has no real commitment to the
host country and over which the host country’s government has no real control. Most economists dismiss such concerns
as groundless and irrational. Political scientist Robert Reich has noted that such concerns are the product of outmoded
thinking because they fail to account for the growing interdependence of the world economy.38 In a world in which firms
from all advanced nations are increasingly investing in each other’s markets, it is not possible for one country to hold
another to “economic ransom” without hurting itself.
HOME-COUNTRY BENEFITS
The benefits of FDI to the home (source) country arise from three sources. First, the home country’s balance of
payments benefits from the inward flow of foreign earnings. FDI can also benefit the home country’s balance of
payments if the foreign subsidiary creates demands for home-country exports of capital equipment, intermediate goods,
complementary products, and the like.
Second, benefits to the home country from outward FDI arise from employment effects. As with the balance of
payments, positive employment effects arise when the foreign subsidiary creates demand for home-country exports.
Thus, Toyota’s investment in auto assembly operations in Europe has benefited both the Japanese balance-of-payments
position and employment in Japan, because Toyota imports some component parts for its European-based auto assembly
operations directly from Japan.
Third, benefits arise when the home-country MNE learns valuable skills from its exposure to foreign markets that
can subsequently be transferred back to the home country. This amounts to a reverse resource-transfer effect. Through its
exposure to a foreign market, an MNE can learn about superior management techniques and superior product and
process technologies. These resources can then be transferred back to the home country, contributing to the home
Page 249
country’s economic growth rate.39
HOME-COUNTRY COSTS
Against these benefits must be set the apparent costs of FDI for the home (source) country. The most important concerns
center on the balance-of-payments and employment effects of outward FDI. The home country’s balance of payments
may suffer in three ways. First, the balance of payments suffers from the initial capital outflow required to finance the
FDI. This effect, however, is usually more than offset by the subsequent inflow of foreign earnings. Second, the current
account of the balance of payments suffers if the purpose of foreign investment is to serve the home market from a lowcost production location. Third, the current account of the balance of payments suffers if the FDI is a substitute for direct
exports. Thus, insofar as Toyota’s assembly operations in the United States are intended to substitute for direct exports
from Japan, the current account position of Japan will deteriorate.
With regard to employment effects, the most serious concerns arise when FDI is seen as a substitute for domestic
production. This was the case with Toyota’s investments in the United States and Europe. One obvious result of such
FDI is reduced home-country employment. If the labor market in the home country is already tight, with little
unemployment, this concern may not be that great. However, if the home country is suffering from unemployment,
concern about the export of jobs may arise. For example, one objection frequently raised by U.S. labor leaders to the free
trade pact among the United States, Mexico, and Canada (see Chapter 9) is that the United States would lose hundreds of
thousands of jobs as U.S. firms invest in Mexico to take advantage of cheaper labor and then export back to the United
States.40
INTERNATIONAL TRADE THEORY AND FDI
When assessing the costs and benefits of FDI to the home country, keep in mind the lessons of international trade theory
(see Chapter 6). International trade theory tells us that home-country concerns about the negative economic effects of
offshore production may be misplaced. The term offshore production refers to FDI undertaken to serve the home
market. An example would be U.S. automobile companies investing in auto parts production facilities in Mexico. Far
from reducing home-country employment, such FDI may actually stimulate economic growth (and hence employment)
in the home country by freeing home-country resources to concentrate on activities where the home country has a
comparative advantage. In addition, home-country consumers benefit if the price of the particular product falls as a result
of the FDI. Also, if a company were prohibited from making such investments on the grounds of negative employment
effects while its international competitors reaped the benefits of low-cost production locations, it would undoubtedly lose
market share to its international competitors. Under such a scenario, the adverse long-run economic effects for a country
would probably outweigh the relatively minor balance-of-payments and employment effects associated with offshore
production.
TEST PREP
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or go to learnsmartadvantage.com for help.
Government Policy Instruments and FDI
LO8-5
Explain the range of policy instruments that governments use to influence FDI.
We have reviewed the costs and benefits of FDI from the perspective of both home country and host country. We now
turn our attention to the policy instruments that home (source) countries and host countries can use to regulate FDI.
HOME-COUNTRY POLICIES
Through their choice of policies, home countries can both encourage and restrict FDI by local firms. We look at policies
designed to encourage outward FDI first. These include foreign risk insurance, capital assistance, tax incentives, and
political pressure. Then, we look at policies designed to restrict outward FDI.
Page 250
Encouraging Outward FDI
Many investor nations now have government-backed insurance programs to cover major types of foreign investment
risk. The types of risks insurable through these programs include the risks of expropriation (nationalization), war losses,
and the inability to transfer profits back home. Such programs are particularly useful in encouraging firms to undertake
investments in politically unstable countries.41 In addition, several advanced countries also have special funds or banks
that make government loans to firms wishing to invest in developing countries. As a further incentive to encourage
domestic firms to undertake FDI, many countries have eliminated double taxation of foreign income (i.e., taxation of
income in both the host country and the home country). Last, and perhaps most significant, a number of investor
countries (including the United States) have used their political influence to persuade host countries to relax their
restrictions on inbound FDI. For example, in response to direct U.S. pressure, Japan relaxed many of its formal
restrictions on inward FDI. In response to further U.S. pressure, Japan relaxed its informal barriers to inward FDI. One
beneficiary of this trend was Toys “R” Us, which, after five years of intensive lobbying by company and U.S.
government officials, opened its first retail stores in Japan in December 1991. By 2012, Toys “R” Us had more than 170
stores in Japan, and its Japanese operation, in which Toys “R” Us retained a controlling stake, had a listing on the
Japanese stock market. Interestingly, although Toys “R” Us ceased operations in the United States in 2017 due to
bankruptcy, it continues to operate in Japan.
Restricting Outward FDI
Virtually all investor countries, including the United States, have exercised some control over outward FDI from time to
time. One policy has been to limit capital outflows out of concern for the country’s balance of payments. From the early
1960s until 1979, for example, Britain had exchange-control regulations that limited the amount of capital a firm could
take out of the country. Although the main intent of such policies was to improve the British balance of payments, an
important secondary intent was to make it more difficult for British firms to undertake FDI.
In addition, countries have occasionally manipulated tax rules to try to encourage their firms to invest at home. The
objective behind such policies is to create jobs at home rather than in other nations. At one time, Britain adopted such
policies. The British advanced corporation tax system taxed British companies’ foreign earnings at a higher rate than
their domestic earnings. This tax code created an incentive for British companies to invest at home.
Finally, countries sometimes prohibit national firms from investing in certain countries for political reasons. Such
restrictions can be formal or informal. For example, formal U.S. rules prohibited U.S. firms from investing in countries
such as Cuba and Iran, whose political ideology and actions are judged to be contrary to U.S. interests. Similarly, during
the 1980s, informal pressure was applied to dissuade U.S. firms from investing in South Africa. In this case, the
objective was to pressure South Africa to change its apartheid laws, which happened during the early 1990s.
HOST-COUNTRY POLICIES
Host countries adopt policies designed both to restrict and to encourage inward FDI. As noted earlier in this chapter,
political ideology has determined the type and scope of these policies in the past. In the last decade of the twentieth
century, many countries moved quickly away from adhering to some version of the radical stance and prohibiting much
FDI toward a situation where a combination of free market objectives and pragmatic nationalism took hold.
Encouraging Inward FDI
It is common for governments to offer incentives to foreign firms to invest in their countries. Such incentives take many
forms, but the most common are tax concessions, low-interest loans, and grants or subsidies. Incentives are motivated by
a desire to gain from the resource-transfer and employment effects of FDI. They are also motivated by a desire to capture
FDI away from other potential host countries. For example, in the mid-1990s, the governments of Britain and Page 251
France competed with each other on the incentives they offered Toyota to invest in their respective countries.
In the United States, state governments often compete with each other to attract FDI. For example, Kentucky offered
Toyota an incentive package worth $147 million to persuade it to build its U.S. automobile assembly plants there. The
package included tax breaks, new state spending on infrastructure, and low-interest loans.42
Restricting Inward FDI
Host governments use a wide range of controls to restrict FDI in one way or another. The two most common are
ownership restraints and performance requirements. Ownership restraints can take several forms. In some countries,
foreign companies are excluded from specific fields. They are excluded from tobacco and mining in Sweden and from
the development of certain natural resources in Brazil, Finland, and Morocco. In other industries, foreign ownership may
be permitted although a significant proportion of the equity of the subsidiary must be owned by local investors. Foreign
ownership is restricted to 25 percent or less of an airline in the United States. In India, foreign firms were prohibited
from owning media businesses until 2001, when the rules were relaxed, allowing foreign firms to purchase up to 26
percent of an Indian newspaper.
The rationale underlying ownership restraints seems to be twofold. First, foreign firms are often excluded from
certain sectors on the grounds of national security or competition. Particularly in less developed countries, the feeling
seems to be that local firms might not be able to develop unless foreign competition is restricted by a combination of
import tariffs and controls on FDI. This is a variant of the infant industry argument discussed in Chapter 7.
Second, ownership restraints seem to be based on a belief that local owners can help maximize the resource-transfer
and employment benefits of FDI for the host country. Until the 1980s, the Japanese government prohibited most FDI but
allowed joint ventures between Japanese firms and foreign MNEs if the MNE had a valuable technology. The Japanese
government clearly believed such an arrangement would speed up the subsequent diffusion of the MNE’s valuable
technology throughout the Japanese economy.
Performance requirements can also take several forms. Performance requirements are controls over the behavior of
the MNE’s local subsidiary. The most common performance requirements are related to local content, exports,
technology transfer, and local participation in top management. As with certain ownership restrictions, the logic
underlying performance requirements is that such rules help maximize the benefits and minimize the costs of FDI for the
host country. Many countries employ some form of performance requirements when it suits their objectives. However,
performance requirements tend to be more common in less developed countries than in advanced industrialized
nations.43
INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTIONS AND THE LIBERALIZATION OF FDI
Until the 1990s, there was no consistent involvement by multi